Anyone Hungry?

Deep within every human heart lies a longing; a yearning for more than just this world. Don't you feel it? Isn't there something deep inside you that cries out: "Is this all there is?" Intrinsically, we sense that life is so much more than dragging ourselves out of bed each day, driving to work, taking a coffee break at 10, lunch at noon, heading home at five, and falling asleep in front of the TV. We do that for 40 years, retire and then...we die. Is that it? Really!? There's a reason you long for more. You were created for more than this world. You were created for eternity, and nothing in this world can satisfy that longing.  It can only be fulfilled by God Himself. This is what Solomon meant  when he wrote that God "has set eternity in the human heart"  (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

This is the stuff that wakes us up in the middle of the night, as we toss and turn, wondering about life's deeper purpose. Jesus provides the answer for this emptiness in John 6:35, stating, "I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again.” In essence Jesus says, “I do for your life what food does for your stomach.”  Just as food fills the emptiness of our physical bodies, He satisfies the emptiness in the very core of our being. He fulfills our inner hunger, answering the cry of the heart for a deeper purpose, as He whispers to us, "Yes, there's more, and I'm it!" 
 

Through the centuries, writers have referenced this longing as a “God-shaped hole”.  There is a part of us, in fact the very core of our being, which longs for intimacy with God.  We may not even recognize it, but even those who deny the very existence of God testify to this.  Bertrand Russell was perhaps the most renowned atheist of the 20th century.  In a letter to Constance Malleson, he wrote, “The center of me is always and eternally a terrible pain—a curious wild pain—a searching for something beyond what the world contains—something transfigured and infinite...God.  I do not find it, I do not think it is to be found—but the love of it is my life.” 

Can you relate to this? Do you feel that emptiness; that longing; that yearning for more? Are you searching for more in life than just daily existence? Don't you want to really live? You can! Jesus is the Bread of Life. Anyone hungry?