Fill up

Have you ever been hangry?  If you're not familiar with that phrase, it's a portmanteau of HUNGRY and ANGRY, meaning you're hungry and it's making you grumpy.
You can do all sorts of things, walk, count to ten, cry, but the thing about being "HANGRY" is that, if you don't address the hunger part, you'll probably find that you stay cross!  Once you eat, stuff just gets back in the right place.

So often that is the case with us spiritually we are hungry and that hunger is a God-given desire for his Word, but we try all sorts of rubbish to fill it and satisfy ourselves. It never quite works and we feel off kilter and like life just is 'wrong' somehow.  It's the same with being tired.  

In the 1st Book of Kings, we see Elijah, who has basically come to the end of himself, walks off and finds himself a tree and tells God 'I want to die'. 

1 Kings 19:5-8 (NLT)
Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat!” He looked around and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again.Then the angel of the LORD came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you.”So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God.

It's a little poetic licence, but I like to think that God said to Elijah 'Buddy, take a nap and get some food".

What we need is spiritual rest and spiritual food to stop us being all over the place. So, what does that look like in real life? 

Well firstly rest speaks to me of a place of restoration,  like in Psalms

Psalms 23:2-3 (NLT)
He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength...

The KJV says it like this
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul:

The word RESTORE there speaks of being returned to it's original state - think of what life looked like in the Garden before Adam and Eve fell; perfectly in fellowship with God; no stress, no trials, no sorrow and no sin. 

Or we could think about the Sabbath, rest which in Bible times was about ceasing from all work. This speaks to me of not labouring to do it all myself.  While we are no longer required to keep the law regarding the sabbath, we can still benefit from it's principal and under the new covenant, we see that Jesus is our Sabbath we can find perfect rest and restoration in him.   We can cease from our own works to relate to God and we can rest in his finished work

Either way 'taking a nap' spiritually speaking means, restoration, renewal and rest. (Not to be confused with laziness) but going back to the original state God intended for us. 

Then 'food' reminds me that Jesus said "I am the bread of life" (John 6:48) and the word is to be our staple diet. (Matthew 4:4)My husband always says "The word of God is bread for every day life, not a cake for special occasions" I love that!   We need regular meals, but we can add to that snacks!

Spiritual snacking is taking chunks (verses/chapters) of the Word and thinking on them, reading them, listening to them and asking the Holy Spirit to show you revelation from them throughout your day.

The thing is though, we can't simply catnap in life or eat junk food and expect to get the rest and nutrients we need.  It's the same in our spiritual lives.  We can't simply take a snack pack and expect it to keep us going on it's own for 6 months (that doesn't mean you an study and meditate on the same passage for 6 months, but it means you can survive on a verse you hear once and forget about). 

Back in the 80's (which, of course, I am far to young to remember 😜) there was a TV Show called 'Why don't you...?"
The theme tune lyrics were:

Why don’t you Why don’t you
Why don’t you Why don’t you
Why don’t you just switch off your television set
And go out and do something less boring instead
Sitting at home watching TV. Turn it off it's no good to me
So Why don’t you Why don’t you Why don’t you go go go

Of course, I'm quite sure the creators of the show meant turn the TV off AFTER you've watched their show, but the point I am making is, the TV isn't going to feed that hunger within you  that only God's word can fill. So why don't you do what the songs says and go go go to the Word!

Why are we so reluctant to simply go to the source of stuff in our life and deal with it.  Why do we seem so predispositioned to want to fill up on junk food so to speak; to read romance books, or put the TV on, watch movies, play video games or even go to the gym all the time (not that these things are necessarily evil,  although sometimes the gym feels like it 🤣), instead of simply resting in Jesus and filling up his on word to bring us back into balance!