Have you ever heard that expression “I’m so hungry my stomach is touching my back bone.”  Kind of an extreme comparison but I can identify with that (although for a fat man that would be an amazing sight).  I’ve also used this expression:  “I’m so thirsty I could spit cotton balls and make the dust fly when they hit the ground.”  Another extreme right? 

            In reality I have never really known true hunger and thirst like this in the world.  There are places where people are literally starving and dying for thirst and it isn’t a bit funny that is for sure.  We must keep these folks in mind and do our part to alleviate hunger and thirst in this world.

            But there is another type of hunger and thirst that is spoken of in the Bible and that is what I would like to address today.  In Matthew 5:6 Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled …”   He was speaking of a spiritual hunger and thirst.  The words “hunger” and “thirst” are descriptive words that indicate a deep longing for something.  Hunger is a longing after food while thirst is a longing after water.  Jesus was telling us that we must desire righteousness as much as if we were in deep hunger or thirst.  When we get to the point that we have this deep longing then nothing else will satisfy it and we cannot rest until we have fulfilled that desire.

            David knew this desire.  In 2 Samuel 23 we read of an incident where David was fighting with the Philistines who had besieged Bethlehem.  David was from Bethlehem and suddenly during the fighting he remembered a well there.  How often he must have quenched his great thirst at that well.  In that moment in time nothing would satisfy him more than a drink from the well in Bethlehem.  The Bible records that three of David’s mighty men broke through the garrison of the Philistines, drew water from that well and brought it to David.  How loyal were those men and how they must have loved their leader to risk their lives in such a way to bring him a thirst-quenching drink.

            The Bible goes on to say that David refused to drink the water and poured it on the ground stating that it represented the blood of those who had risked their lives to bring it to him.  He did this in honor of those men.

            The point however is that David had longed deeply for a drink from that well in Bethlehem.  And just like that we must hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Righteousness – Right-us-ness.  For all to be well between us and God.  We can never be righteous in ourselves.  In fact, Isaiah tells us that our righteousness is nothing more than filthy dirty rags (Isaiah 64:6).  We can never hope to be righteous in ourselves.  And this is why we must hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God to the point that we must have it or we will die.

            A baby wanting its bottle will cry and scream until it is given what it desires.  We can yell at that child.  We can scream at that child.  But if we want the crying to stop then we must fix the bottle and the child will cease.  But not until.  So we must want the righteousness of God so badly that nothing will stop our cries until we get it.  There can be no substitute. 

I remember when our children were babies.  They would cry for a bottle and while their mother was fixing it I would try to get them to stop crying using a pacifier.  There were times that the pacifier was all they wanted. But when they were hungry that substitute would not do.  Nothing would make them stop until they got their bottle.

            How I want to hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God as that child.  How about you?

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.?  Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.