I recently spent a few days in San Francisco with Evie, our youngest daughter. Because I was a few weeks away from teaching through the Beatitudes and Jesus’ message that “happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled,” I noticed meals through the lens of His words.
One morning Evie and I rode bikes over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a long trek for a nine-year-old, so instead of riding back over the bridge we took the ferry from Sausalito back to San Francisco. Evie was, and I quote, “dying of hunger and thirst,” and there was one vendor selling drinks and snacks on the ferry. When there is only one vendor, prices generally skyrocket to where you pay three bucks for a small bag of crackers and three bucks for a bottle of water. Depending on your perspective, you could call it a monopoly or business savvy or price gouging. But regardless, because you can’t get food or drink anywhere else, they know you are going to pay.
Jesus is so much better to us. There is no meal other than Him that is going to satisfy our souls. The One who created us is the One who can satisfy us. Jesus has a monopoly on our satisfaction yet He does not price gouge us. He offers us Himself for free. The Lord says: “Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; and you without silver, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without silver and without cost.” (Isaiah 55:1)
On the same trip to San Francisco, Evie and I went on a chocolate tour. Eight different stops. Our tour guide said we would be chocolate snobs by the end of the tour because they were going to show us the best. To our guide and the chocolatiers we interacted with, Hershey’s is unbearable and Ghirardelli is so-so. After stop three I knew I had to pace myself. It was absolutely incredible. We could not eat any more chocolate after stop seven. We were completely filled. When we got home and Kaye asked us our favorite part of the trip, and we both said the chocolate tour. And we would both do it again right now. We were filled, but we want it again. When you have a satisfying meal, when a meal is the best and it fills you, you want that meal again. When we taste and see that the Lord is good, we want to know Him more. Being filled as we pursue Christ is both satisfying and something we want again and again. We are filled yet we are still hungry for Him.
A.W. Tozer wrote a beautiful prayer about tasting the goodness of God and wanting more: “O God, I have tasted your goodness, and it has made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.”
