Food for Thought

4Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Matthew 4:4
Have you ever been hungry? I don't mean food, necessarily. Did you ever want something really bad? Perhaps you wanted a new job. It could be success. It could even possibly be a steak.We all have times where we want something that is important. It may not even be selfish. It could be a need, something we seem to have gone without, like a parent to teach dicipline, or a spouse who actually cares about the well being of the family.
The need could be perfectly legitimate. Whatever it may be, there is that voice of temptation that says, "You've gone without for long enough. It's time you made something happen." In other words, "Turn those stones to bread if you're so hungry."
Jesus faced that temptation. He hadn't eaten for forty days and nights. Then he's sitiing in the desert wilderness. He's got his knees up, resting his arms there and his head is hung there on his arms. Jesus glances over to his right to see a small pile of stones. They're round and sort of flat. They almost look like... yeah, like bread.
Thr thought enters his head, "You know, I could turn those stones into bread, then. I could alleviate some of this hunger." He then remembers something he and his Father had spoken about years and years before. It takes more than bread to stay truly alive. So he turns to the comfort of his Father's words and the devil that set up those perfectly shaped stones leaves for a while to find another temptation.
The words of Jesus, blessing a mere sack lunch, created enough food for over 5000 people later on in his life. His words created new sight, new health and even new life for the deceased. The words of Jesus and his Father created all that you see around you. And this is the point.
With all that power, Jesus still didn't feed his own body. He fed his spirit instead. Life comes from the very word that comes from God's mouth. There's nothing else. If God ever were to stop speaking, stop telling our stories, we'd cease to exist. Poof. Gone.
So your desires for food and drink are needs for physical life. But that is temporal. It is short lived. It ends. The life that matters, the one that should be strengthened, is fed and sustained by the word of God. Don't try to get what you think you need on your own. What you need will come. At the end of Jesus' test, he was tended to by angels and then he was fed. In God's time, your prayers will be answered. Until then, rely on Jesus, the word incarnate.