August 22, 2023

Matthew 5: 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (NIV)

You give us healing and grace our hearts always hunger for.*

Pica is an eating disorder in which a person craves and eats non-food items, such as dirt, hair, paper, or paint chips. The condition is often caused by a nutrient deficiency. Besides the risk of ingesting toxic substances, a person with pica fills up on products that don’t have the nutritional value that the body needs to perform properly.

Are you suffering from a case of spiritual pica? What fulfills your most intense cravings? Money? Power? Attention? Significance? If you aren’t hungering and thirsting for righteousness, you will never be satisfied. Your empty calories might make you feel full but you will not grow or function in a healthy manner.

The two lines of defense against physical pica can also be applied to the treatment of spiritual pica:

1. Correct the nutrient deficiency. Pica patients are given food or supplements containing the minerals or nutrients their bodies are lacking. For a case of spiritual pica, feeding on God’s word can cure an unwholesome craving. 

2. Behavioral intervention. Eating the right things is an effective treatment for the physical condition but a person with pica might also have to unlearn some bad habits. Spiritual behavioral intervention also involves replacing the bad behavior with a good one. Eating properly (feeding on the word) provides the nutrition (spiritual guidance) we need to pursue a life of righteousness instead of a life of meaningless pursuits.

When we learn to hunger and thirst for righteousness, we will always be satisfied.

When we fill ourselves with the Word of God, ungodliness is vacated from the premises.*