By Ada Brownell
During the Great Depression one
of my husband’s sisters mixed cocoa, sugar and butter to add to a cake. A young
woman knocked on their door and asked to use the phone. On the way to the
phone, she grabbed the chocolate mixture out of my sister-in-law’s hands--and
gobbled it up.
The visitor stood there, the
empty bowl in her hand, staring.
“I…I…I’m sorry,” she mumbled, as
if she were in shock.
“The poor girl must have been
hungry,” my mother-in-law recalled.
A World War II vet we knew also experienced
hunger. Taken prisoner by the Germans,
he escaped. He traveled mostly at night
trying to get back to American troops. Water wasn’t too difficult to find, but food
was something else. Hunger gnawed his
stomach and mind as he traveled through enemy territory.
He lay on the ground resting one day when a
rat, his curious little eyes and body pulsing with life, came to
investigate. In seconds the soldier snatched the tail and ate the rat.
What kinds of things are you
grasping to fill the God-sized hole within? Do you find sin, success, fame, money, empty relationships don’t satisfy
your inner longings?
John Lennon, who sang with the famed
Beatles, said “I knew there was nothing at the top, but it was fun getting
there.”
Actor Errol Flynn who died in 1959, had his handkerchiefs and other possessions monogrammed with a question mark
because he found no meaning in the life of fame, booze and women.
Howard Hughes, once one of the
richest men in the world, became a recluse later in life, seeing few people,
rarely going out, and fearing germs. The film producer and director, as well as
an aviator, found no peace from money and earthly power.
Satan lies to everyone and tries
to make them believe they can find lasting pleasure in sin and success, but
nothing fills the God-shaped void within us except our Creator and Redeemer.
The Bible says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
after righteousness for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).
The prophet Isaiah wrote, and preceded the words with, “Says the Lord:”
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who
have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money
and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages
for what does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good. And
let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to me. Hear and
your soul shall live....” (Isaiah 55:1-3NKJ).
Good news for anyone who will answer the invitation.
Copyright ©
2015 Ada B. Brownell
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