Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Matthew 5:6

I hate diets! I know, it isn’t a diet, it is a “lifestyle change.” Whatever you call it, it isn’t fun, and it is hard to do. Since 2016 my doctors have encouraged me to go on a diet because diabetes runs in my family. Since then, my most consistent diet has been the “yo-yo diet.” If you are not familiar with it (and most people who have tried to diet are), it is a sarcastic term that means you do well for a while and your weight goes down only for it to go up again (and then down again, then up again…). I’ve tried Weight Watchers, South Beach Diet, low carbs, and counting calories to name just a few. Most of them worked for a time. In fact, I would say that all of them got me down to my desired weight range temporarily. What went wrong?

I got hungry! This is the problem with every diet, I get hungry. A little bit here and a little bit there. A cheat day turns into a cheat week that turns into weight gain. Now, I know that there are many factors to dieting in addition to calorie deficit. Some studies show that cutting out fat, cutting out carbohydrates, and cutting out protein have different effects on your bodies. Underlying any diet includes the basic idea of having a calorie deficit. In other words, you need to burn more calories a day than you take in. I have read a lot of books and watched a lot of videos. My problem isn’t a lack of knowledge. My problem is, I get hungry!

Why do I say this? Because hunger and thirst are basic drives that move us and motivate us. When you are hungry it gets to the point that there is nothing else you will think about until you are satisfied. You will forgo many things in life until your hunger or thirst are filled. Years ago, Abraham Maslow came up with what he called the “Hierarchy of Needs.” It is not a biblical understanding of human motivation, and I am not encouraging you to buy into it. My only point is that at a basic level he recognized that one of the foundational needs humans have is for food and water. I’m sure you didn’t need an advance to degree to figure that out, you only need a crying newborn. When a baby is hungry only food (milk) will satisfy. When a baby is thirsty only milk will satisfy.

Jesus is looking at our motivation and the object of our motivation. We long for many things but often they are the wrong things. We are driven by our desires but so often our desires are selfish and sometimes downright evil. Jesus wants our hearts so changed that we want the things that he wants. We desire the things that he desires. We long to see God glorified in our lives and we hunger for the righteousness that only he can accomplish in our hearts through faith. God wants us to want it. He wants us to crave it. He wants us to long for it. If your motivation is God’s glory and the advancement of his kingdom, everything else in life will fall into place.

He says that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. Why is that? It is because, as Pascal said many centuries ago, we have a God-shaped vacuum in our hearts that only he can fill. We can try to fill this hole in our hearts with pleasure, power, or prestige but it will leave us ultimately empty and unsatisfied. Nothing is big enough to fill this chasm in our hearts other than the Infinite One.

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII. 425