Envoy Rally Point - Month 5, Week 3
Theme: Hungry For God
This week’s rally call invited us to sit with something many of us feel, but rarely know how to interpret rightly.
Hunger.
Not manufactured desire.Not spiritual ambition.Not comparison against imagined standards of devotion.
But the honest experience of wanting God - and sometimes feeling that want acutely.
As storms passed through our region and routines were disrupted, we began by acknowledging a simple truth:
Hunger often becomes clearer when comforts are stripped away.
The question before us was not how to make ourselves hungry for God, but something more searching:
What does biblical hunger actually mean - and why does God allow it?
Hunger at the Level of Survival
We anchored the evening in familiar words, but words that resist being treated casually:
“As the deer pants for flowing streams,so pants my soul for you, O God.”- Psalm 42:1
This is not poetic preference language.It is survival language.
A deer panting for water is vulnerable. Exposed. Near the edge.It cannot control its environment.It cannot manufacture relief.
The image names desperation - not spiritual intensity, but need.
And that distinction matters.
Hunger in Scripture is not framed as a failure of faith.It is framed as the posture of those who know where life actually comes from.
Hunger as a Blessing, Not a Defect
We held Psalm 42 alongside Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,for they shall be satisfied.”- Matthew 5:6
Jesus does not say blessed are the full, or the settled, or the spiritually resolved.
He blesses hunger.
Not because hunger feels good - but because hunger implies relationship.Ongoing dependence.Continued pursuit.
Faith, in Scripture, is not a one-time transaction.It is a lived, daily orientation toward God.
To hunger for Him is not to lack faith - it is to be alive to it.
Why God Allows Hunger
A central question surfaced naturally:
If God is good, why does He allow us to feel this way?
Here, Scripture offers clarity without rushing us to comfort:
“He humbled you and let you hunger… that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone.”- Deuteronomy 8:3
Hunger teaches.
It reveals what sustains us - and what never could.
Drawing from experiences in the military, professional sport, and moments of personal extremity, we reflected on how clarity often comes at the bottom. When excess is stripped away. When distractions fall silent. When only what truly matters remains.
Jesus Himself entered this space.
Forty days in the wilderness.No control.No excess.No shortcuts.
And it is there - in hunger - that He names where life is actually found.
What Dulls Our Hunger
As the conversation opened, we asked honestly:
What in our lives might be numbing this hunger?
Not in accusation.Not in moral inventory.
But in discernment.
Hunger is often not lost through rebellion, but through saturation.
Too much input.Too many comforts.Too little quiet.
This led us into a careful conversation about fasting - not as a rule, not as severity, not as spiritual currency.
But as space.
Fasting as Attention, Not Achievement
Across Christian history, fasting has never been about proving seriousness to God.
It has been about humility and attention.
St. Basil described fasting as a way to reorder desire — not to harm the body, but to quiet competing appetites so that deeper hunger can speak.
Fasting, rightly understood, is not the goal.It is a question.
What do I reach for without thinking?What fills the space where God is inviting me to wait?What might need to be removed, not added?
The invitation was gentle, not prescriptive:
Create space.Lower the noise.Let hunger surface without panic.
A Shared Orientation for the Week
We did not leave with a mandate, a method, or a measurable outcome.
Only an orientation:
To notice hunger without shame.To resist filling it too quickly.To ask what it is teaching us about God - and about ourselves.
We closed in prayer, asking not for instant satisfaction, but for clarity, humility, and trust - that God meets hunger not with irritation, but with provision.
Looking Ahead
Next week, we will stay with this theme - but turn the question slightly:
Not just what we hunger for…but what may be consuming us.
And whether satisfaction is being delayed or displaced.
Until then:
Hunger is not the enemy.It is often the invitation.
God is with us.
God is with us.
Father,teach us not to fear hunger,but to listen to what it reveals.Strip away what distracts,and form in us a deeper dependence on You.Meet us - not with pressure, but with presence.Amen.
I’m glad you’re here.
Let’s run the race - Eyes Up, Chin Up!
Grace and peace,
Sam Johnston
