Insightful Musings on theScriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear ones.

I wish I didn’t hear rain on the roof—but I do. Nevertheless, rain or no rain, I think I’m going to try to button up that little building project. I have the roofing down on one side. Now I need to get the other side in place, all screwed down, and finally attach the end and ridge capping. When that’s done—she’s done! Then I get paid!—even though it plays out to be about “minimum wage.” I have in mind a safety system to set up so I can walk on that 5/12 pitch without slipping on the wet metal.

“When it rains, it pours.” That’s kind of what happened yesterday. Three additional jobs were dropped in my lap—to be added to the pile. I’m trying to figure out how I can keep up. At least we should be able to continue eating.

Andy just call from the Salem/Dallas area and said it is raining like crazy. Suddenly it’s pouring here again too. Phooey! Please don’t hold me accountable to my above statement of “rain or no rain” intentions.

However the weather rolls, have a blessed day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Those of us who are not financially affluent and who are not in some kind of retirement mode where our living is supported by some pension or investment income—we know what it’s like to be motivated by hunger—knowing that if we don’t work we don’t eat—meaning that our financial responsibilities, including the cost of food, cannot be met if we don’t have the finances to cover them. Well—just a minute—I suppose we could opt to be a panhandler at some strategic city intersection. But then, even that kind of engagement is largely fueled by hunger.

It occurs to me that hunger is actually a gift from God. If he has designed these physical bodies to run and function on the fuel of food, knowing that if that intake were to cease so would life itself, then the built in sensor mechanism of hunger is about as important as the food a body hungers for. Typically, people who aren’t hungry don’t eat. So if there were no feelings of hunger to prompt eating, a person could potentially starve to death with no warning.

The reason I’m inspired to pick up on this idea is for the purpose of calling attention to the practical psycho-spiritual counterpart to this physiological reality—because psycho-spiritual food is essential for psycho-spiritual life as well. I think Jesus was speaking to that fact when He quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3 and said, “Man does not live on bread alone (physical food), but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (psycho-spiritual food)” (Matthew 4:4).

Here’s a good question for ongoing self-examination: To what degree am I hungry for God and His Word? I think I am. But I know I want to be. I know too much about how this works. I am too familiar with the deceptive strategies of our enemy to inspire hungers for other stuff—junk food that is counterproductive to the nourishing benefits of God’s food. After all, Jesus exclaimed, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (right relationship with God), for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). The writer of Psalm 42 gives evidence of the same kind of hungering and thirsting: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2).

The first time I heard those verses from Psalm 42 in song form was over 50 years ago. A classmate named Anita Green sang it in one of our college chapel services. It was a moving experience for many of us because we so resonated with that expression of hungering and thirsting. At our request, Anita sang that song again at our casual college reunion event in July 2013. That event was recorded, so I would like you to have a taste of Anita (Green-Wheeler) Secrist singing "As The Hart Pants After The Waterbrook".