Will the Lord forget the needy? His Word declares, "the needy shall not alway be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever." The very pangs within you were fashioned by His hand, that you might feel your dependence upon His bounty. That gnawing emptiness is a sharp teacher, it drives you to look beyond the bare pantry, past the empty cupboards, to the God who opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Yet many have perished in the midst of plenty, their souls starved while their tables groaned. Better to hunger in body and feast on Christ, than to have bread enough and to the full and know nothing of the Bread of Heaven.
There is a hunger more fierce than that which wastes the flesh, it is the hunger-bite of the soul. When a man's strength is bitten with hunger, what a hunger must be raging throughout the whole of his nature! Your present want is but a shadow of that deeper famine which afflicts every son of Adam who is a stranger to the grace of God. I would not have you exchange a bodily craving, sharp as it is, for the leanness of a soul that never feels its need of righteousness. Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Is your present trial driving you to this? Does the want of bread set you panting after the living God? That same hand which holds the storehouses of grain holds also the treasures of eternal love.
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and these lesser things shall be added. The promise is not stripped of power by the emptiness of your shelves. He who fed Elijah by the brook Cherith, first by ravens and then by a starving widow whose cruse of oil failed not, has He lost His ancient skill? No! He is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever. Yet I charge you, do not make this temporal need the only cry of your heart. Better to have no guardian angels around your dying bed than to miss the Savior who receives the departing spirit. What if the famine should continue, and even unto death? Surely then, if you are in Christ, the hunger pangs will only hasten your seating at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Cast yourself upon His care, for He has said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Here is solid spiritual food condensed into a very small space. Take these eight words and extract the marrow from them. Let your soul be full of content, nay, overflowing with sacred delight, even while the body suffers want. The ravens will be despatched; the flour and oil will hold out; the handful of meal will suffice. He knoweth your frame; He remembereth that you are dust. And perhaps He will send provision by the hand of one who reads this very request, moving their heart to be the channel of His compassion. In the meantime, let that hunger be a sharp spur to your prayers. The starving man cannot bear himself, he cries out, he wrestles. Let your supplications be as real, as desperate, as importunate. There is no sham prayer about true hunger. May the Lord not only supply your temporal bread but give you Himself, the Living Bread, so that you shall never hunger again.