Hunger and Hard Times

“He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God's mouth.” Deuteronomy 8:3 (The Message)

There it is, spoken to Moses. It was God who put us through hard times. It was even He who made us hungry. It is just so easy to blame the devil. Why not? God surely doesn’t want me to suffer, to hunger, to go without or to appear needy.

As I recall, most of my “hard times” weren’t all that hard. It really depends on what scale we use. Yes, several years ago our family moved into a one bedroom rented apartment, all five of us, without my wife or I having jobs. But none of us went hungry. We didn’t get to go to McDonald’s and I spent all day every day looking for work until I found a job. But, the difficulty never challenged our lives.

It was a hard time because it was embarrassing, I felt like and looked like a failure, and because the trajectory of my “career” changed course from highly upward to a crash landing. I even took a temporary job where the foreman told me to pick up all the garbage on a lot, left, and didn’t return the rest of the day. I was humiliated, but I wasn’t starving.

So, “hard times” can simply be about perception. A promising career one day and picking up litter two weeks later does little for the ego. But we still had enough to eat, had clothes to wear, and eventually found work that where I earned twice the amount I ever had before.

But, isn’t that God’s point as He speaks to us through Moses? If it is all about perception, and if I never went hungry, and still had clothes on my back, why did I feel my world had crashed? Because we are more than food, clothing and lodging. We, unlike the rest of the animal world, have an ego that intensely desires to be significant.

There is nothing wrong with that. I believe God imparted this desire for significance into humans at creation. Sin has marred that desire into a selfish pursuit of acknowledgement and acquisition. So life becomes a never-ending chase to get the recognition we crave. And if we are not recognized, at least we can collect enough stuff to convince ourselves that our life is worth something.

God tells us there is another way, and it is the reason He lets us go through hard times. He wanted them to see where their life came from, after all. Give me a nice stroll through the desert with a crowd of buddies, plenty of water, a good bbq every Friday night and a Saturday morning tee time and I won’t give God a second thought. Oh, I might point to the sky upon making a hole in one, just so people don’t think I’m entirely ungrateful.

But, it is in the hard times, the times when we experience what a desert truly is: deserted. Deserts can be hot or cold, they can be mountainous or flat, sandy or craggy, but they all share one thing in common; they are virtually desolate. It is that desert that grabs us from the inside and won’t let go. It is that desolation where life seems to have been sucked out of the very air, which makes us cry out with “hunger”.

And, it is that cry in the desert void of all life that brings resources only God can supply. Perhaps you have been there. You are at the bottom of the crash, you’ve turned in the last resume of the day, called every lead you have, and now, there is nothing left you can do. God asks us not only to rely on Him at such a time, but to actually discover our life no longer depends upon our well-developed talents or charisma. We have done all, and the desert still is so dead not even an echo returns our call.

This is when God answers. This is when the manna is provided. This is the moment, if we allow it, when we awaken to realize we have been frequenting the wrong café. It is important to work, we must provide for ourselves and our families. But our worth is no longer derived from how fat the paycheck is, but how good our Heavenly Father is.

When Jesus ended His forty day fast the devil tempted Him by suggesting He turn the rocks in the desert to bread. Certainly, being the Son of God, He had such power. Besides, He created the rocks, it would make no difference if He changed His own creation at will into something else. That’s what gods do, they create, change, and rearrange the universe to their liking, don’t they?

Jesus didn’t agree. After forty days His hunger remained for His Father’s words alone. He would eat bread again soon enough, but He wouldn’t play around with power to satisfy Himself. May I learn the secret that it is not how much bread my paycheck has put on the table, it is how much Bread of Life I am depending on.

God’s supply is not earned. You cannot earn more by performing at a higher-powered level of faith. Just like the manna that was delivered daily, God’s Word, His sweet message in Scripture and through His Son, are constantly available to refresh us in the driest of times.