Are You Hungry?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." (Matthew 5:6). Or it could be said, "Blessed are those who want God and His perfect will for their lives more than anything." And what does that mean exactly? Does it mean I must give up any preconceived ideas about what His will is and how He may choose to use me? Does it mean my own personal identity be lost in who He is in my life? Is what I want and am capable of doing in the Kingdom insignificant in light of His design for me? Yes to all those questions!
Let's face it. After being part of the Family for a time, and beginning to discover what our spiritual gifts and talents really are, we have a tendency to begin to presume our usefulness to God. Somewhere in the recesses of our minds wearing the facade of humility is the presumption that God is really fortunate that we decided to get on board and join the team! He NEEDS us! We bring something to the mix that no one else could. But reality is that whatever needs to be done in this world, He can get it done without us. The reality is that we have the privilege of being part of something really great, something of eternal value, if we so desire. He is willing to use us if we really want to be used, but it will be as He chooses to use us.
That probably means those natural gifts and talents, while a wonderful part of who He has made us and which will be used from time to time, will probably not be the forms through which we do our most effective Kingdom work. We have no righteousness within ourselves. Our hunger and thirst takes us beyond ourselves. It stretches us in ways we never dreamed possible.
Dr. Martin Luther King is quoted as saying, "Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precede the crown we wear." Crown wearing has always been more enticing than cross bearing, even among Christ followers. Our hunger and thirst will give us a craving for the cross. Does that mean we have a sadistic need for suffering, that we somehow equate suffering with righteousness? No. It means we want God and His perfect will for our lives more than anything!