Living with an insulin-dependent diabetic has been a real education. In the ten years since my son was diagnosed with Type I diabetes I've learned some interesting things about food, metabolism and how the body functions. Normally, when a person eats, the sugars are broken down and enter the blood stream. At that point insulin, produced by the pancreas, converts these sugars to food that the cells of our body need to function. In diabetics the pancreas is not producing the insulin needed to convert the blood sugars into usable food for the cells. It's entirely possible for an untreated diabetic to be eating heartily and, at the same time, be starving at the cellular level.
This is the way it is with life. We can be eating heartily from the banquet of life--enjoying opportunities, working hard, playing hard, striving for all the things we've been convinced will bring us some level of satisfaction or sense of worth. We may even manage to achieve some level of fulfillment and contentment. But it is entirely possible that we may still be starving at the spiritual level.
Jesus taught his followers that they are happy and blessed when they "hunger and thirst for righteousness" (Matthew 5:6). Jesus was teaching us to recognize that our deepest hunger must be for a right relationship with God and with other people. Our other pursuits--work, school, family, recreation, even the altruistic things we do to improve our community, will not bring us full satisfaction unless they are put into perspective by an overarching desire to satisfy our hunger and thirst for a right relationship with God and with other people.
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