A certain hunger

The Lord spoke to me during my devotion time this evening:

"The labourer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on" - Proverbs 16:26

A short verse, but let us see what it tells us:

1. We are labourers as God's people. We work for His godly and spiritual things. We also are labourers in this world. We work for worldly things such as money and material possesions.

2. What makes a labourer work? As a labourer works to earn his food and a living, so our appetite fuels our desire to work. The larger our appetites, the harder we want to work to fill it.

3. "His hunger drives him on" - Hunger - it is not just a whim, or a passing desire that the labourer works. He is hungry. He needs food, he wants food. He is driven by the hunger. An appetite means nothing without the desire to fill it. This desire is the hunger. How hungry the labourer is will determine how hard he works. A starving person would grab and gobble food that is offered, compared to a person who just eats for leisure, at his own time.

So...

Shall we then as labourers, examine our appetites and hunger? If we fill our spiritual appetites and hunger, we build up our spiritual body, which lasts forever but if we fill our worldly appetites and hunger, we build up a store of wrath for ourselves. Therefore in things of God, let us have huge appetites and great hunger; better yet, let it be an insatiable appetite and an unending hunger. But for things of the world, let us fast. Take what you need, no more and no less, as the LORD our God instructed the people of Israel in gathering manna in the desert. Be careful not to take more what than you need, or it might turn to dust just as it did in the hands of the Isrealites, and you would have gathered it for nothing. And the Lord is good, for he will not let us starve in the flesh, and he will satisfy our godly hunger with an abundant flow.

May the LORD our God fill us with this godly hunger, and may we find fulfilment in the Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.