Hearts are still hungry
After a week of Ezercizzi attended by over 800 youth, one cannot help but feel that many hearts are still hungry for spiritual meaning and direction in their lives. We asked those who attended to vote in an online poll and here are the answers they chose to our question: What is more likely to awaken spiritual hunger in today’s youth?
- A Painful experience: 53.61%
- Seeing a spiritual change in friends: 38.15%
- Today’s youth are not spiritually hungry: 6.18%
- Death of someone close: 2.06%
- Going to church: 0%
The results speak for themselves. The experiences of pain is universal and in one way or another we all pass through it. If we are attentive to God’s voice however, it may be the catalyst to seeking the deeper meaning of our lives and to hearing God call us to turn to Him more deeply.
It was Christian apologist CS Lewis who said:
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Holy Week and Easter Sunday show us that our God is not indifferent to our pain but enters it Himself. On the cross He takes it upon Himself – our sin, our suffering, our separation, our death and our debt.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
1Pet. 2:24
This greatest historical event of all time is the ultimate proof of God’s love and mercy towards us. His resurrection, witnessed by many people who actually saw the Risen Christ, is the surest vindication that He really is who He says He is: the Lord and Saviour of all who ‘richly blesses all who call on Him’ (Rom 10:12).
So whatever we may be passing through: difficult times, discouragement, struggle with sin, a relationship breakup, dryness, we need to constantly look to our Lord in prayer because He truly ‘raises all who are bowed down’ (Psalm 145:14). Our problems and struggles may not vanish in an instant but we are assured that the Lord is alive within us and we need not fear.
As we learn how to walk faithfully with Jesus, we ourselves become one of those who in turn awaken a spiritual hunger in others by the change they see in us. Hearts are still hungry and the Lord is looking for those who will feed them. This is what the Church and the communities within it are called to do. This is what we have had the privilege of doing again this Lent. This is what you too are called to do, to feed the hungry hearts with His love and truth.