Hungry

Have you ever not eaten before? I mean sure people skip breakfast because they rather sleep a little later. Have you ever chosen not to eat? You have the determination to just not eat so you can fulfill whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. Let me ask you this, have you ever not eaten but didn't choose to not eat? What I mean is have you ever been forced not to eat, like if it were your choice you would eat, however it's not your choice you are forced to not eat.
Today was a day I was forced not to eat. Big deal 1 day whatever right ?! My day started early so I could be at church by 8am to help with Sunday School, I got to church when my E light lit up for my gas level. I had a little bit of money left on my debit card not really sure how much, and 6 bucks cash in my wallet. Doesn't seem like a big deal yet, keep reading this will get better. I'm sitting there in the main service worried about money, worried about how I was going to pay for gas or pay for food with such little gas in my car and such little money available to me without begging my parents or friends to mooch off of. I realized that I had been holding on to my money as if I were desperate to have it, God convicted me to let the hold or the desperate grasp I had on my money go, so I put it in the offering plate all $6 bucks. I said well I can let people know that I'm fasting, so they wouldn't ask me why I wasn't eating. In a since that's what I was doing, I fasted not primarily out of choice but force then by force/choice. Where was I to go after church service I didn't have enough gas to get home or go somewhere to eat with what money, so I put up my hammock at the church and chilled out for a bit. One of my best friends had a mission trip over view meeting and when he was finished asked me if I'd like to go to his place to hang out. I said yes and he drove.
My stomach from not having breakfast to missing lunch is rumbling and cramping and wanting food extremely bad. I kept telling myself Eric this is fasting now learn what God is trying to show you, you asked him for answers now listen and look. I was alright for a while, then we headed back to church and that's where I was really really hurting for something to eat. I figured when I could choose not to eat it's not so bad to wait, but when I had no choice in the matter it was something I longed for something I desperately wanted to have and needed to have. What about that little bit of money on your debit card? Well, like I said I got to church that morning on E, I drove to a gas station after church let out tonight and asked for 20 on pump 19. My card was declined, then I said try 15 and luckily went through. 3.83 is what I paid for per gallon, I was lucky to get really really close to 5 gallons. That was enough to make it home and make it to work tomorrow.
When I got home I walked inside and straight to the kitchen and I felt like an animal anything I could find I was shoving it in my mouth, some things I didn't even bother to chew just about choked it down. I asked God what was the real lesson I was to learn and it hit me.
We as Christians need the word of God, in our lives, to read it, to study it, to speak it. To be hungry for the Word of GOD is what we should be starving for. There are people in countries that don't get to have spiritual and biblical food not by choice but by force. And when they have to sneak to get a bit or a small nibble of spiritual food from the word of God, it's the feeling of gratitude, love, and fulfillment. It's the same feeling you get when you can't eat for whatever the reasons and when you take that first bite to relieve yourself from starvation it's a feeling that just takes over your whole being. It's delicious no matter what it is, you don't complain or try to inspect it to find fault with it, you just put it in your mouth and savor the flavor! Christians in other places get a little bit of spiritual food and they have to savor the flavor and make it last for a week or few weeks at a time.
Matthew 4:4 "But he answered, 'It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by ever word that comes from the mouth of God." 
We need to be in the word everyday and eat of it, just as often as we eat food. The word of God can give you energy and strength when you are the weakest, when you don't have it as Christians we should crave it, and savor the delicious flavor, and satisfaction/ fulfillment it has to offer. Not saying to just eat eat eat and eat of it till we become biblically obese, but once we have enough for ourselves we are to pass it around and spread it out so that others may eat from the same source of truth that we have.
That is why we, Christians, should be HUNGRY!!!