Being Fed
‘He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord’ (Deuteronomy 8:3).
In the wilderness God ‘let you be hungry.’ In a consumer society like ours that is so caught up in having its own needs met, this is not an easy statement. Being hungry brings a whole lot of emotions to the surface. But somehow it’s mainly when we’re uncomfortable that we seek God.
Comfort seems to dilute our need of Him. A little further on in this chapter (vs.10-18), God is at pains to warn the children of Israel of this very fact. It’s in our discomfort that we learn a precious lesson: there are two parts to us – a “natural” and a “spiritual” part. Both need to be fed. But even when the “natural” doesn’t have all of its material needs met, the “spiritual” part can still sustain us.
This spiritual comfort comes to us through what God speaks. So we are encouraged here to listen carefully to God’s words. They feed our spirit. They nourish the spiritual dimension to our lives.
The “natural” part of us is sustained by food, but the “spiritual” is sustained by God’s word. And for the Christian, feeding on God’s word can give us a supernatural strength, even carrying us through times of physical hunger and hardship.
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