Hungry? Why Wait?

“Hungry? Why wait?”

The Snickers ad campaign proclaims to the “hungry” masses of our world that there is no need to hunger and no need to delay our gratification. If you are even remotely hungry, grab a Snickers. You shouldn’t have to deprive yourself.

Sadly, we don’t know what real hunger is. Few, if any, of us ever have to go to bed hungry. We have enough food not only to sustain ourselves but to gorge ourselves. Really, our hunger pains are simply “You know, I haven’t had any food in three hours” pains. Few of us know what it means to truly need food.

The writer of Ecclesiastes puts it this way: “All man’s efforts are for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied” (Eccl. 6:7). In his time of temptation by the Devil, Jesus hasn’t eaten for forty days. The Devil tempts Jesus to make the stones turn into bread and fulfill his own needs. Jesus answers, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Mt. 4:4).

Too often we try to fill our own hunger, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, with food that doesn’t satisfy. We often try to fill gaps in our life with stopgaps, something to simply get us through. The hunger always returns, the pain always resurfaces, and the longing is never filled. We need something to fill us up, something more than a spiritual Snickers bar.

As Jesus is talking to his disciples he delivers this message: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (Jn. 6:35).

Hungry? Why wait? Grab ahold of Jesus, who will fill all your needs.