Spirituality Information |
Starved Spirits, Sorrowful Souls
Give us today our daily bread. Matthew 6:11 (NIV) We can be intelligent, healthy, rich, and religious and it would be meaningless without bread. The most pious saint is still dependent on bread. So this prayer is an admission of a great need; the need for bread and it is all-inclusive. No man can eat intelligence. We cannot eat money; we cannot eat the Bible and survive. The implication in this prayer is clear: we are dependent creatures. We need something that we are incapable of furnishing for ourselves. The tractor moves down the furrows, we plant the seed, but what purpose would it serve if there was no life in the seed? Someone has put life in the seed, life in the soil, and life in the earth. Even though we are co-laborers with God in His work, we are still dependent upon Him and His creation. We know this because if the life in the seed and soil dies, we also die. It is only when we realize and recognize the nature of our relationship to God are we able to even hope to understand our own life or to deal adequately with life's many complexities. Whether we like it or not, we are creatures of the dust and to dust we will return. We are wholly, completely, totally dependent upon God's mercies. Give us today our daily bread. Not only is this prayer a reference to physical hunger, but also to spiritual hunger. Dr. David G. Myers, in his article, "The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty," observed: No society in the history of the world has ever enjoyed the standard of living Americans know today... Yet since 1960, the divorce rate has doubled, teen suicide tripled, violent crime quadrupled, the prison population has quintupled, and some estimates put the incidence of depression in the year 2000 at ten times what it was in the year 1900. Americans are less happy today than they were 40 years ago, despite the fact that they make 2.5 times more money.How did we get into this mess? We are indeed starved spirits; our souls in deep sorrow. There is a hunger down in our souls; in the very root of our being crying, begging, pleading to be fed. There is the hunger for love. Many have never experienced it and do not really know what it is they are hungry for. But they are hungry; their spirits starved for someone to just care about them. This type of hunger can be likened to those times when we are hungry for food, but do not know what it is we are hungry for. So we just eat something, but it does not satisfy. Many of our brothers and sisters who are hungry for love try to find it in drugs or alcohol or gambling or sex or all kinds of vices only to learn that they do not satisfy the deep hunger for love and acceptance. Jesus got hungry, not only physically but spiritually. You recall when He was going to Gethsemane He told His disciples to, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." Matthew 26:36-38 (NIV). Jesus was hungry. He was hungry for companionship, hungry for comfort, hungry for the presence of close friends, hungry to have somebody with Him who understood His agony, understood His pain, understood His sorrow, understood His death sentence. Jesus was spiritually hungry for empathy and to know that his disciples were with Him. As a nation and as a world, our spirits are anguished and tormented for lack of spiritual food. Our longing reaches to the very depth of our being. We are so desperately hungry that we hardly know what to do with ourselves. Our stomachs may be full, but we are hungry. We may have money in our pockets, but we are hungry. We may have a roof over our heads and shoes on our feet, but we are hungry. We are hungry for understanding and need to feed from the plate on nonjudgmentalism and compassion. We are hungry for kind words and need to feed from the buffet of compassion and encouragement. We are hungry for belonging and need to feed from the bowl of forgiveness and mercy and tolerance. We are hungry for our critics to walk a mile in our shoes, put on the coat of our burdens, and wear the shoes of our pains. Our souls are in deep sorrow and the sounds of starving spirits resound throughout the universe. OUR PLEA: Give us today our daily bread. Rev. Saundra L. Washington, D.D., is an ordained clergywoman, veteran social worker, and Founder of AMEN Ministries. She is also the author of two coffee table books: Room Beneath the Snow: Poems that Preach and Negative Disturbances: Homilies that Teach which can be reviewed on her site. Her new book, Out of Deep Waters: My Grief Management Workbook, is expected to be available soon. You are welcome to visit AMEN Ministries: Your Soul's Service Station for spiritual refreshing, soul edification, browse our newly expanded mini shopping mall or review our recommended books you may want to add to your personal library. Blessings to all!
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
Enthusiam And The Spirit In this article, I would like deal with one specific aspect of attitude, that is, "enthusiasm." To have an enthusiastic attitude about we do is essential. Who Has The Greatest Job In The World? I have, in my opinion, the world's perfect job. Just look at the evidence. Life as the Ultimate Psychedelic Experience Life is just a journey. Princess DianaWhether we are for or against psychedelic experiences, we have to be amazed with the possibilities and potential of a chemical that can expand our consciousness beyond our everyday awareness. You May Be A Ghost-Host Love vs. Fear - Volume 18 Breaking with tradition, today's article comes from the 9-23-04 edition of Sojomail. Sojomail is produced by Sojourners; an evangelical journal, and calls itself a 'weekly email-zine of spirituality, politics and culture. When Bad Things Happen (Part 2) The good that Paul writes about is a commitment of life to the sovereign will of God. It is complete trust in God. Wisdom Quotes Point - Arguments Just Explain "What does it profit a man to have gained the whole world, and to have lost his soul?" - Jesus ChristYou don't need to be Christian to see wisdom in the words of Jesus. Simple quotes from men and women around the world, from present day or milleniums past, inspire and instruct us, regardless of the religious or spiritual tradition they come from. New Hope For Global Peace In a recent article entitled "Some Evidence of How We Are Spiritually Connected" I reported on a case study where I was able to give some evidence as to how individuals who have overlapping life histories share such histories as information stored in what I term "interpersonal", "shared" or "collective" thought fields. These fields hold all the overlapping memories, experiences and beliefs that the individuals who are connected to those fields hold in their consciousnesses. Do Feng Shui Remedies Really Work? THE PREMISEFeng Shui is an ancient Chinese art that has been practised for thousands of years. It is based on the idea that there should be a "balance" or harmony in the world. One More Mile I want to share with you something that happened to me just a few weeks ago. There is a place that I go to write, read and to simply relax. Life Gets Teejus, Don't It? Those five words are from a song that I remember hearing a long time ago. It may even be the song's title. Spiritual Healing: In The School of Christ Spiritual healing of the sick in Christ has many Christiansin a kind of spiritual vise. On the one hand they read aboutspiritual healing in their Bibles. Dancing with the Devil "If you can't dance with the devilYou will never walk in the Light."Well now. Angel to Angel Years ago, my minister spoke to us about how you could solicit the help of your guardian angels to help with conflict resolution. She told us stories about how she and others had successfully asked their guardian angels to speak to the enemy's guardian angel. Show Of Hands The human body is surely a miracle of God's creation. Each member has its unique function with none quite as active as the hands. Just Learning To Cope I have been thinking about this all night. I am realizing that there are more and more people dealing with anxiety. It Took a Banker to Show Me What Jesus Was Talking About On January 13th 1982 an Air Florida flight crashed off the 14th Street Bridge in Washington DC. It was a bridge I had traveled across many times before during the year I lived in DC. New Century; Same Old Story In His graciousness, God has blessed us to enter a new century. When you look back on the years and experiences you had in the last century, you probably wonder why you did not lose your mind. Secrets of Effortless Action Action dakini gets everything done.When wanting and grasping hold swayThe dakini has you in her power. Expect the Best and Get It The famous prayer of Jabez, where Jabez prayed for prosperity, is a model of expectant thinking that we can all benefit from. "And Jabez called upon the God of Israel saying "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I might not cause pain. |
home | site map | contact us |