Hunger and Thirst

So I decided to switch up my dieting adventure today. In case you haven't heard of my previous dieting plan, it was called the "lose all your excess weight and then get pregnant and gain it all back again" plan. It's great. Hey, it's a wonderful plan if you are trying to get pregnant...just get down to a size 8, wait about three weeks, and voila!

Well, my quiver is full and we are done with the pregnancy scene. So I figure now is the time to lose my "thank you, baby James" weight and get off this dieting roller coaster once and for all. So my day went kind of like this:

7:00 - Breakfast (Hooray! I'm starving and that cereal tastes really good!)
7:05 - Hmmm...only two hours and 25 minutes until my snack. I'm hungry.
9:26 - Close enough! Oh man, food is awesome.
10:30 - I wonder what I am going to eat for lunch. Just thinking about all the possibilities makes my mouth water.
12:02 - (The phone rings as I am about to take my first bite of food.) What??! Oh, man, now I have to talk to someone? Don't they know it's lunch time????
1:45 - I don't think it counts as real calories if you are sharing a cracker with your baby.
5:30 - Supper time! And my stomach echoes the sentiment of my son Joseph's prayer before we ate, "Dear Lord, please don't let me starve to death while waiting for this prayer to be done."

All day. Constant thoughts about food. Drinking water to fill my stomach so that I can think of something OTHER than food. Opening the cupboards to see if new food has magically appeared.

It was in the middle of one of those mental food-binges that I realized that I want to crave God like I crave meal time.

I want to long for Him. I want to hunger for Him. I want to thirst for His Word. I want to count down the minutes until I have my next quiet time with Him.

Instead of opening a cupboard, I want to open my Bible and see what He has in store for me.

I want my day to be like this:

7:00 - "He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple." (Isaiah 50:4 NASB)
9:30 - "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3)
12:00 - "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Phil 4:6-7)
2:30 - "Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know." (Jeremiah 33:3)
5:00 - "I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst." (John 6:35)
7:30 - "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

Millions of people across the world are caught up in the diet and binge cycle; it consumes our time and our thoughts. Imagine if we spent even half of that energy on feasting with God.

I bet we'd find our hunger is finally satisfied.