Hunger Pangs

For some its the moment you wake up and for others it's in the middle of the day. It's a childhood memory on a Sunday morning, when food wasn't a thought until the smell of coffee and/or sizzling bacon wafting through the air made you get up and get ready for breakfast. It was an automatic reaction. When that feeling comes across your stomach or a warm inviting aroma comes across your nose, it's like a Pavlov experiment. 

In fact, marketing strategists uses that lack of discipline to their advantage. There is this since torn down bakery from a large food corporation in Detroit, Michigan that used to make sure the ventilation system had a fan. The fan blew that baked good aroma out toward the neighborhoods in order to get more customers. There was no denying that fresh smell of bread to make you want some. It's that drive that causes the industry to be the booming business that it is.

Children ask why their stomachs rumble at various times and the parents ask, when was the last time the child ate something. It makes him/her believe once the food is consumed, this is the reason for the tummy rumble and it will always be the solution. When feeling uncomfortable, get immediate satisfaction as soon as you can to get that comfort back as quick as you can. It's food, says the child with the satisfied stomach (1 Corinthians 13:11 AMP). This is the same philosophy is where the term, "comfort food" is derived. Self medicating to make the feelings of void, pain, hurt, or discomfort with food. Does it help or just creates another issue - weight gain?

But then you grow up and this nagging desire in your loins that comes about when looking at someone appealing or something that he/she has. What then? Who do you ask then? In the boy's "locker room", the conversation and antics tells a young man one thing while the laughter from the conversations of budding young women say basically...the same thing. Is this sound advice or what can get that immediate satisfaction back and the comfort can return as quickly as it left, upon seeing the object of your desire? 

There was a woman who married and had 3 daughters and a son. She raised her children to respect their

elders and to be obedient. As they grew, there was a saying the woman continually told her children, "a son is a son until he gets a wife. A daughter is a daughter all of her life." Not knowing what their mother meant by this saying until the children were much older, they learned that the woman had a horrible fear of being left alone in a nursing home or at all. Eventually, her husband and the woman divorced and her only son moved out and had a life of his own, just as the woman had said over and over while her children grew. The daughters also beginning to gain their independence; the woman started to panic thinking that what she had feared was coming upon her. But her daughters felt obligated to do as they were raised to do. Even though each had other matters in their own lives, as most adults do, the  daughters made sure to visit and that their mother had everything she needed. Unfortunately, the woman became ill and had to be hospitalized to the point of being incubated for respiratory assistance. After some time the medical staff informed the woman that she could be discharged with a nurse visiting once a week to make sure everything is operating efficiently. The woman opted to remain in the hospital. This would ensure of her getting round the clock service and to not be left alone ever. One day, the woman woke and was gasping. Her respiration tube needed to be cleared. She alerted the on duty nurse but the shifts were changing and the nurse assigned to the woman had just left the woman's room. She will be alright until the shift changes, was the assigned nurse's thought. The woman wasn't alright. She passed away due to respiratory complications and was alone (Job 3:25-26 AMP).

Was there a way to resolve the woman's desire to have someone around her without manipulating her children to do it? Could she not be satisfied being at home with a medical staff visiting her or even schedule more visits if that could fix the problem? How about seeking therapy for having a fear in the first place? Was this "hunger pang" ever satisfied?

A young man made the decision to date a woman who has been the desire of his heart. It was fortunate for him that she felt the same way. It didn't take much convincing for her to go away with him on a long weekend. When they had been together for a few months, the young woman asked when they could take the relationship to the next level. He stopped what he was doing and just stared without saying a word. It scared her and she was quick to retract her words stating that she was happy the way things are too. Still silent, the man said that he would be going away on a business trip. The woman was pleased and assumed she would be coming too. He corrected her stating that he was considering to make this trip his permanent residence. The young woman asked, what about what they had together? Was he just going to throw it all away? He replied that it was fun but they never agreed with the relationship being anymore than what it is and now he is calling it over because he no longer feels the way he used to. The young woman was over wrought and angry. She pleaded with him and then declared that she would never let him go. He explained his reasoning but she wasn't having it. She repeated herself that he wasn't ever going to leave her and if he'd try, he will meet with her wrath. He chuckled and issued her the door. As weeks turned to months and thinking that the matter will resolve itself especially after them seeing each other in social settings. She was pleased to see that he was alone when she had moved on with another relationship and even got married. But when she saw he had someone too, she plotted the young man's demise...to completion (Galatians 5:16-17AMP).

Are hunger pangs a way in telling the person that the body is in need of something detrimental for life? If this be true, then why isn't there a pang for exercise? Why isn't there a pang to go see a dentist before there is a pain and no other choice? Why isn't there a pang to clip your toe nails before you see them come through your socks? Some doctor's say that allowing the body to skip a few meals can be for the betterment of one's health. The person trying a fast for the first time might feel the discomfort because he/she has always fed that pang. What other pangs have been fed? Why do alcoholics or addicts have that label?  They say that the addiction is a life time struggle. How is this applicable to the church or more poignantly to the single Christian?

In having a discussion with a Addiction Counselor, he said, him being a former casual drinker, that he tried marijuana before and wasn't impressed but would never try harder drugs. His reasoning being, he would never allow for a substance to have control over his thoughts, decisions, and how he is feeling. Isn't that what hunger pangs do? There is a term used when someone is angry and instead of listening to what the person is angry about, they call it "hangry" because he/she isn't being rational and must need some food in their system. This excuse is also used when someone hasn't had sex in a certain amount of days. They aren't rational because they must be "horny". Yet, the bible says something completely different and comforting (Galatians 5:19-21 AMP).

Paul advices the people of Corinth as they satisfy themselves in debauchery. Knowing it is wrong because they were from the church yet more than likely reasoning as to why it was necessary for them to continue to live in that manner; Paul resolves their behavior and tells them to marry (1 Corinthians 7:28 AMP). It won't be a sin but you will have trouble, he says.  Why would Paul advise them to marry and then tell them that it will sustain their spiritual lifestyle and cause them some discomfort too? What would be most important to the hearer of that message? What would be most important to you, your spiritual success or comfort? What trouble do you think Paul was referring?

Without discipline, there is no structure, no direction, no focus on any specific goal. This sort of person is directed by his/her emotions. He/she is satisfied by what he/she sees. It is called feeding the flesh. The flesh, as you know wars with the spirit and the spirit wars with the flesh. Addicts have made the flesh their first priority. Nothing else matters but that next fix. He/she may say family is the most important thing to them until that feeling comes back for the next hit or he/she will start feeling sick. Have you ever wondered, with all of the commercials, documentaries, and movies showing the ugliness of drug and alcohol addiction, why is it still an epidemic? Who would ever desire to be on that side of the tracks trying to battle their way back to sobriety? What was the initial temptation and how could anyone else be tempted after seeing scores and scores of people be hurt, abused or worse by dying over the ways of their flesh?

Children are directed with what they see because they are children. Until they know better, they won't do better. But we are no longer children. There is no excuse (1 Corinthians 13:11 AMP).