Most years begin, for me, with a plan for eating less or eating differently. If I could just not get hungry or crave junk food with empty calories then life would be better. I know I’m not alone!
But this year that is not my focus at all. I plan to continue working out three times a week. I plan to continue making food choices and acknowledge that the results of what I choose will be what I have to live with. I’m not looking to change my shape.
Gain strength? Yes. Move well as I age? Yes. Feel good? Yes. Consume myself with myself? No thanks.
So imagine my intrigue when the word for my year that I asked the Lord for was “Hungry.”
Josh and I watched The Chosen where Mary was reciting her Magnificat. Luke 1:53 says, “He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty handed.”
These words rolled around in my head the following week. I think maybe because during Christmas there is a lot of consumption. A lot of filling our shopping carts. Filling our bellies. Filling our eyes. Filling our homes. And at the end we oftentimes still feel empty. Maybe even more empty than before all the filling.
I want the good things God fills His people with. I wonder what it means to hunger more for Him than for anything else. I know what it is like to crave more clothes, more shoes, more of the right gifts for the people I love. I know what it is to crave friendship, to crave acceptance. I know what it is like to want to be filled with security or health or happiness and ease. I crave answers to questions about the future.
I had to ask myself—what is it that I am most hungry for? And why? What do I truly crave? Am I willing to acknowledge that most of the things I’ve craved and gotten my fill of have not brought deep satisfaction to my soul?
What would it look like if this was the year of being hungry for God and His Word and His presence? Hungry for His righteousness? Hungry to see His kingdom come? For craving more of Him and anticipating true satisfaction in the process?
Wouldn’t that be something worth focusing on this year? I do think so!
I actually KNOW so! Here are some verses I found at first search:
God fills those who seek Him with good things. Psalm 107:9 says it’s best—“For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.”
Satisfaction and goodness are offered to me. Will I sit at His table and eat and drink freely? Or will I choose to be distracted with what the world offers and end up with a parched soul and an empty heart?
Here’s to a year of hungering for God and delighting in His abundance!
You’ll see the blue sticky notes in the Word for the Year section. Mine is “hunger.” Ruby’s word is “eager.” Josh chose “diligence.” And because Josh told Mack this should be his word also (and may or may not have given a mini lecture on why this needs to be his word), so that’s why Mack’s sticky note says, “what he said” with an arrow pointing to Josh’s note. We are still waiting to find out what word Molly lands on. I don’t think she likes being confined by one word, which is totally understandable. She may come with a list of words and that’s totally fine too.
Happy New Year!
I love this!!!