Only The Hungry Get Fed

My mom lives out in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. A while back she asked me to install an automatic deer feeder to attract the deer to her backyard. I told her that she didn't need a deer feeder, and just bought her a sack of corn. I told her to start putting out a little corn in her backyard every couple of days. Sure enough, the next time I went to visit her, she was proud to show me the deer that started coming to eat the corn she put out.

This past weekend I was out at mom's, visiting for a couple of days. Getting up early in the morning I decided to go out in her backyard to meditate. I was only there for a few minutes when the deer started to appear. The deer somehow appeared to communicate with other deer in the area, because in a short time there were over a dozen deer walking around me wanting to be fed. I did not feed them anything, and within a few minutes all of them had left, except for one lone doe. This doe was very persistent and kept walking around and staring at me. I later found out that she was the mother of twins! I guess that was why she was so hungry. I finally gave in to her persistence and got her some corn. When I went out the next morning to meditate, even more deer appeared. I got a small amount of corn in a bucket and sat down on a lounge chair in the yard. The deer all surrounded me but would not get any close than a couple of yards, except for, you guess who, the mother of the twins! I could tell her apart from the others because she had a small cut in her ear. She came right up to me and started eating out of my bucket. After a few minutes she was eating out of my hand! When the corn ran out she came up to me and was nudging me on the arm with her nose, trying to get more corn!

While meditating in my mom's back yard I started thinking about the many verses in the Bible that talk about those who hunger and thirst after spiritual things. In Matthew 5:6, Jesus say's that "blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled". Just as the persistent, hungry, mother deer of the twins was the only one that got fed, so only those who hunger after God will receive anything from God! God will not force his blessings upon anyone. Most of the deer I was observing in my mom's backyard were too afraid, or just not hungry enough to come up close and eat. I was there offering a bucket of corn to the ones that would come up to me. I believe that God views us in a similar manner. God has all his blessings and rewards and is just looking for those who hunger or thirst drives them close to him. God is willing to give his blessings to anyone who will get close to him.

God saw that the Old Testament laws were difficult to follow. God decided to put the "law" into our hearts (Heb 8:10). While Jesus was on earth he promised that the Father would send the "comforter" or the Holy Ghost to guide us (John 16); and be the "law" in our hearts. In John 7:37-39 Jesus said: "“Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’ (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him". Some people question if they have to receive the Holy Spirit. We should not question if we have to received the Holy Spirit because in John 7:37-39 Jesus said that the "Spirit" would be given to everyone believing in him!

So the next time you experience that spiritual hunger or thirst (or loneliness, sadness, sorrow), go boldly to God, let him know that you are in need, and he will "feed" you from limitless storehouse of blessings!



Scripture references are from the New Living Translation