Blessed are Those Who Lack

In His wisdom, God created man in His own image with needs God alone can meet.  He made our bodies to send signals to the brain with feelings of hunger, thirst, and if we are too hot or too cold.  By responding to our senses, we can take practical action for the health and well-being of our bodies.  The simple action of drinking water or moving from the sun into shade can prevent heat exhaustion, dehydration and sunburn.

Our needs go beyond tending to our physical flesh, for we have emotional and spiritual needs as well--having been given the capacity to have understanding of personal relationships and our environment, love, desires, ambitions and a conscience to guide our moral decisions.  Based on a complex combination of what we know, how we feel and our personal preferences we seek outcomes to benefit us to our satisfaction.  The trouble is feelings of happiness, contentment and satisfaction are temporary and fleeting.  We expend effort to pursue good feelings that can be hard or impossible to obtain, and whenever we experience them we cannot enjoy them as we would like.

Because we are made in God's image and have a personal relationship with God, He has designed us in such a manner that lasting, genuine satisfaction can only be found in Him alone.  Our hunger, thirst and desires we can only temporally relieve point us to seek Him in faith in every area of life.  Jesus taught His disciples in Luke 6:20-21:  "Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said: "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. ²¹ Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh."  By faith in Jesus those who felt the pinch of poverty, hunger and lack, and the pain of grief could look beyond the present season to a new opportunity for lasting satisfaction, abundance and joy.  There have been times we have been pleased to receive our wages or a gift that allowed us to afford expenses and to obtain our desires.  We have felt the physical pleasure of eating delicious food and the satisfaction of being content.  We have wept over things that made us wonder if we could ever be happy again, and happiness has come unexpectedly.

This fleeting sense of satisfaction we have experienced here and now on earth point to the future God has planned for all who trust and love Him, for hunger, thirst, grief, sorrow and sickness will pass away.  We can know in part what it means to be well, satisfied and content through Christ, and we will know this completely when we reside in new, glorified bodies in a new heavens and earth where righteousness dwells in the presence of God forever.  Life is good, but the best we can experience today by our efforts pales in comparison to the lasting satisfaction and joy found in Jesus where contentment and peace are abundant and constant.  God is worthy to be praised when we become aware of our lack and personal need, for it opens our eyes to the poverty of anything this world can offer and the sufficiency of Christ.