A Heart For The Hungry

Isaiah 58:6-12

Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. (Isaiah 58:7)

ONE OF THE PITFALLS OF Christian theology over the centuries is that it has tended to spiritualize everything in the Old Testament. Not that events like the Exodus, the entrance into the Promised Land, and the feasts of Israel didn’t actually happen, of course, but they have become valued merely as symbols of deeper, more lasting truths. Israel’s battles have become metaphors for our spiritual battles; literal hunger and thirst have become pictures of our spiritual hunger and thirst. We are right to emphasize the spiritual, but in doing so, we have often neglected the material. God is still concerned for actual captives and hungry people. He still wants to meet the needs of those who hurt.

We see this tension even in the New Testament. Where Luke quotes Jesus saying, “Blessed are you who are poor” (Luke 6:20, NIV), Matthew quotes him saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3, NIV, emphasis added). Both are promised the Kingdom of Heaven. We can be reasonably sure that Jesus said it both ways at various times and meant it both ways each time. Why? Because God has made his concerns clear throughout the written Word. His heart is drawn to the hurting, the needy, the sick, the helpless, and the brokenhearted. And if our hearts aren’t . . . that’s a problem.

God wants to meet these deep human needs, and he very often does—but usually he meets them through his people, just as he does virtually everything else in this world. He has chosen human agency for a reason, which means each of us has a role in accomplishing his purposes on earth. When we see needs around us, something in our spirits should feel compelled to meet them. None of us can address all of them, but many of us can do something more. When we do, we reflect the heart of our Father in tangible, memorable ways. We put material clothes on an eternal gospel. And we show people who God really is.

{Jesus, you are a comprehensive Savior, and I want to be a comprehensive follower. Show me what I can do. I can’t change everyone’s life, but I can change some. Draw my heart toward the hungry and hurting, and let me fill them with daily and everlasting food. Amen.