I am hungriest for God

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)

I woke up this morning, crawled out of bed, and realized, with a sinking sort of feeling, that this was the day I’d set aside this week to observe a fast of some sort. I generally work to avoid the idea of fasting, and particularly fasting related to the consumption of food, but during Lent, I try to set aside one day per week where I in some way abstain from food.

This morning, I decided on what I thought would be the easy way out. I would do a fruit and vegetable fast. From the moment I woke up, until the moment I woke up the following day, the only food I would consume would be fruits and vegetables. I could give you all of the justifications for choosing this over a complete abstaining from food (I was exhausted, and would need energy for work etc.), but I’ll be really honest. I wanted to be able to say that I’d practiced the discipline of fasting this week, without really giving up food. I like fruit and vegetables – I eat them in fairly large quantities on a daily basis. It seemed like a healthy idea to eat only fruits and vegetables for a little over 24 hours. What I neglected to take into consideration in my bleary eyed morning decision making process was exactly how much starch and bread based products are also part of my daily diet. How many things I eat for the quick “energy boost” or “sugar fix.”

At about 1:00 this afternoon, as I was sitting at my desk, waiting patiently for our bookkeeper to return from her lunch hour and take over answering the phones, giving me my own lunch hour, it hit me. I didn’t want carrots, or snap peas, or a kiwi fruit or mandarin orange. I didn’t want another glass of water, or a cup of roiboos tea. I wanted bread. Badly. Or maybe a cracker. Something in the starch and grain based food category.

I couldn’t shake the thought. I “needed” bread. Now. There would be no waiting until tomorrow morning. It must be now.

I tried reasoning with my body. “you don’t really ‘need’ bread. You just want it, because you’re used to it. Because you love it, and I indulge you by feeding you the thing that you love on a regular basis. You can live without it for another 18 hours.” Nothing doing. My body would not be satiated with rational arguments.

I tried to distract it by feeding it other things. “Here’s some baby carrots and snap peas, fresh from the farmer’s market. Or maybe a kiwi, would you like a kiwi? An orange? A sip of water, or a cup of tea?” It wouldn’t be distracted.

And somewhere, in the midst of the reasoning, and the attempts at distraction, I became aware of a voice whispering in the background, “I am the bread of life…”

Lauren Winner, author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath, and a convert from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity, describes a conversation she’d once had with her rabbi, arguing that she was more likely to focus on God on a high feast day if her stomach had be satiated. She writes:

Rabbi M. did not roll back thousands of years of rabbinic instruction and tell me to eat a bowl of Chex on the morning of Yom Kippur. Instead, he said the hunger was part of the point. “When you are fasting,” he said, “and you feel hungry, you are to remember that you are really hungry for God.”

And that has become my litany, my chant. When I sit at my desk on a Friday afternoon and wonder whether one little blue corn tortilla chip with a dab of black bean spread would really hurt, I say the words out loud: I am hungriest for God, my truest hunger is for God…

Rabbi M.’s words make clear that, like the liturgy, the fast accomplished a repositioning. When I am sated, it is easy to feel independent. When I am hungry, it is possible to remember where my dependence lies.

And so, I began to pause and listen to that voice. “I am the bread of life.” A friend and I have been having an ongoing discussion this Lenten season about hungering and thirsting for God, for deeper things of God.

I chose a fruit and vegetable fast this morning out of laziness and obligation. A desire to say I’d practiced a discipline, without the sacrifices that should generally accompany the practice of a discipline. I spent my afternoon realizing a deeper hunger. A desire for bread.

The craving for bread remains. I am anticipating with great eagerness the moment tomorrow morning when I will break my fast with a hot crossed bun from an excellent local bakery. But as I passed through the afternoon, and my body continually reminded me that it would really appreciate it if I would stop ignoring it’s request for bread, I was reminded of my own, much deeper hunger for God, for the satisfaction Jesus promised when he said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”