Bruce Springsteen’s first big hit, Hungry Heart, has been running through my mind lately. For those of you who are not over 50, it was released in 1980 on his album, The River. The lyrics deal with making some bad choices, continuing to make bad choices, and always ending up with a hungry heart. The music is pretty upbeat, contrasting with the lyrics. You can listen to it here.

Perhaps the reason the song keeps popping up is that I am also reading Geneen Roth’s Feeding the Hungry Heart. It came out in 1982, and I do not doubt she danced around her den singing Springsteen a couple of years before.

The title for the song (and maybe the book) come from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem Ulysses. There is this wonderful line “For always roaming with a hungry heart” that speaks to never being filled.

The book is about compulsive eating.  Roth writes of our need to fill something that cannot be filled otherwise. Her opening chapter starts with these words- “You can never get enough of what you really don’t want.”

She mostly deals with people who are binge eaters. A gallon of ice cream covered with whipped cream, walnuts, and cherries at one sitting. Several packs of Oreos at once. A dozen or two donuts. And the associated guilt and shame that usually follows. She says that we are trying hard to love ourselves, and we don’t know how. There is aching inside that, while it cannot be filled with food, it can be silenced for a while. But until the hungry heart is satisfied, the hungry stomach never will be.

St. Augustine wrote in the fourth century, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Referring to God. Evangelists in the 1960s and 70s, the age of psychological fulfillment, would say that our hearts had a God-shaped hole that nothing else could fill.

But what about those who do know Christ? Have asked him to come into their lives, forgive their sin, lead them to new life? Those who seek to follow him every day, to be his body in the world today?

I ask this question because I am a follower of Jesus, yet I have a hungry heart. Both in the Springsteen and Roth modes. While I have made some bad choices in the past, hurt myself and others, I am trying to not continue down those paths. And, by the grace of God and with the support of good friends and spouse, I am stumbling towards the goal.

I do not binge eat like the clients in Roth’s book, at least not anymore. But I eat. A lot. That is, if I am sitting down and there is food, it is about to be eaten. I’m not hungry. But put me in front of a tv, in a movie theatre, or just sitting on the back porch pondering the goodness of life, and there will be calories consumed.

During this season of Lent, I have been taking time each day to do some deeper self- examination. This is one I have been looking at (and singing about) for the last week. What am I trying to fill? And why don’t I stop when I realize it will never be filled? At least not by food.

There’s a great scene in the movie High Fidelity. John Cusack, who runs a record store, keeps sabotaging relationships with one woman to move on to the next. He stops for one second and yells “Why do I keep doing this?!!!”

Springsteen says

“Everybody needs a place to rest
Everybody wants to have a home
Don’t make no difference what nobody says
Ain’t nobody like to be alone.”

And maybe that’s what I need to remember. I am not alone.

O God, feed my hungry heart.

 

There are many things, disciplines, we can use to help us grow in our spiritual life. Worship, prayer, serving others, fellowship just to name a few. Essential for our growth in Christ is taking time alone with him. Just you and Jesus. It’s not the only thing we need to do in order to grow, but it is perhaps the most essential. Just as you and your spouse cannot grow closer to each other if you are never alone together, you cannot grow closer to Jesus if you are never alone with him.

I know there are many reasons people use to say they do not do that. That’s for another column, though. In this one, I want to give you some practical tips on how to grow in your time alone with Jesus.

I share these from a lifetime of successes and failures. Sometimes I have been consistent, and sometimes I have let other things crowd out this important one. It’s a good thing our God is always a God of second chances. And third. And fourth….

Here are some practical things you can do.

First, set aside some time when you know you can be alone with Jesus. For most of us, it’s in the morning. Early morning. Before the kids get up, before the emails and texts start coming in. Before the day begins. I know some people are “night” people.  But I have found that most folks who wait to spend that time at night with Christ rarely do. Or when they do, they tend to fall asleep. Getting up early in the morning may mean planning so you can go to sleep earlier in the evening. I have had to train myself to do this. I am not a natural early morning riser. And I love to stay up late. But early morning, even for me at this point in my life, is better. If you can do it better later in the day, and stay consistent in it, go for it. But I recommend early morning.

Second, set aside a place where you can read, think, study, pray, and not be disturbed. I have a bedroom-turned-into-a-study. Might be a kitchen table. Or maybe a corner in the den. Having a consistent place, and a place where you can get your materials together easily every day, will make it easier for you to do this. I do not recommend the bed. Falling asleep is just too easy there.

Third, be there. I read this recently- “Wherever you are, be there.” Have you ever known someone who was in the room with you, but you knew their mind was somewhere else? It’s really easy to become that person- thinking about what’s coming up next, who you’re going to see, what you need to do. I keep a little pad of Post-It notes on my desk. Whenever anything comes into my mind that I may need to remember later, I quickly scribble it onto the Post-It and put it aside. At first my desk was littered with Post-Its, but now I usually have only one or two. I think I have trained my mind to “be there.”

Fourth, start with a prayer. I write mine because I think better when writing. You may want to try that. I just start telling Jesus what’s on my mind- what I am grateful for, concerns I have, requests for guidance, questions. Whatever is on my heart and mind goes into the prayer. Sometimes it sounds really holy and fancy, but most times it’s just me writing out my thoughts to Jesus.

Fifth, read Scripture. I recommend getting a Bible that you can read easily and you do not mind marking in. And I recommend having a system or plan for reading. Some people like to just open the Bible to random spots and “see what the Lord is telling me today.” Which, to me, is sort of like walking into the pantry, closing your eyes, reaching onto the shelf, and eating whatever can you pick up. You may get something from it, but in the long run, it’s not very nutritious. Find a plan that helps you move through the Bible at your own speed. The Bible is not a novel. I do not recommend trying to read it like one. If you start at Genesis and try to read straight through, you’re probably going to bog down after Exodus. I have tried many reading plans. Here’s one that I recommend –https://www.biblica.com/resources/reading-plans/ If you use the Bible App, here’s a page with theirs. https://www.biblegateway.com/reading-plans/?version=NIV I also recommend that whatever plan you use, make sure it focuses on Jesus. He is the author and source of our faith, and if we focus on something else, we can often miss what God wants us to know and to be.

My particular pattern right now is to read a Psalm (going through them one a day, except Psalm 119, which I will divide into several days), then a chapter from an Old Testament book (I go through the whole book a chapter at a time), followed by some readings in the Gospels (I read through each one a few verses at a time), and then from one of the other New Testament books. If you do not have the time like I do at the moment, read the Gospels, then the letters of Paul. Those are what define us. As Christians, they are ours.

Sixth, write what you read means to you. Any new insight, question, or idea from the readings. Keeping a journal of this helps you to see where you have grown and what you have learned. If you read something that you do not understand, write the question down and later look it up. Talk to someone who knows the Scriptures; look it up on the internet. Though, I do not recommend that you take the time to look up things immediately. We are far too easily distracted when we turn on our computer. Email, Facebook, and other things draw us in so quickly.

Seventh, read something that will build you up spiritually. It may be a daily devotional, like the Upper Room, or a book of them like Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. It could be a topical book or a spiritual autobiography. It’s good to read what others have found.

Eighth, spend some time quietly sitting. Some folks call this meditation, some call it listening prayer. Research shows that people who do this for only 5 minutes every morning hare more productive, have less stress, and are more creative, regardless of their faith. For those of us who are Jesus followers, it gives us a chance to listen. Keep that pad of Post-Its available. Things will come to jot down.

Ninth, do this alone but find some other person or group to regularly meet with to discuss and share what God is telling you. We come to Christ as individuals, but we become part of a larger body when we come to him. We are not meant to follow him all alone. As a matter of fact, we cannot. We are part of his body.

Well, that’s it. The most important part is to start. Let’s do it.

What would you add?

I’m for you!

 

Michael