Hunger

One of Solomon’s most insightful proverbs is listed at chapter 27 and verse 7, “A sated man loathes honey, But to a famished man any bitter thing is sweet.” This proverb has had greater impact upon me since I’ve been serving internationally with sportspeople. This last week was a refresher course for me on the power of hunger; physical, intellectual and spiritual.

From 24-30 May I had a team with me in Tegucigalpa, Honduras to work with the Softball Federation and the Tae Kwon Do Federation and their respective coaches and competitors. They are hungry in almost every way. Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, but is populated with some of the friendliest and most gracious people. It has a terrible problem with gangs and violence, but also has one of the fastest growing churches in the world.

Making up our team was a softball coach and his wife, a professional softball pitcher and a professional catcher, a fifth degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and an 54 year old FCA staffer (me). The coaches, players and martial arts master brought with them their accumulated years of experience and credentials and those attributes were met with the Hondurans’ immense hunger. That made for a tremendous set of clinics, practices and demonstrations. We worked with the best players in the country and with high school girls who had a total of three days of experience with the sport. I even worked with a group of young men who are playing American Football in their country. Their desire to develop the sport in their country and to improve their individual skills was overwhelming.

Our team marveled at how eager to learn everyone was. One group of young women would not quit on the pitching drill in which they were engaged even though we were in the middle of a downpour. They were hungry, even bitter conditions seemed sweet! A couple of Tae Kwon Do instructors, one from Cuba and one from Honduras, received copies of “Corazon de un Campeon,” a devotional book for sportspeople in Spanish from their visiting instructor. They were thrilled! They asked the author to sign it and profusely expressed their thanks. The next day we found the Honduran instructor using the book with his students at the gym. He read from it, discussed it with them and continued for forty minutes prior to their workout. This is hunger on a couple of levels.

Hunger makes our work immeasurably easier. “To the famished man, any bitter thing is sweet.” Even people with modest abilities (like me), giftedness (like me), and intelligence (like me) are able to make a real impact because of the hearers’ hunger. People who are sated, without hunger, are much tougher with which to work. They are indulged, bored, ambivalent, melancholy and otherwise unmotivated. They loathe honey.

Rather than beating up the sated ones who loathe the sweetness offered them and being angry at their fullness, I have learned to seek out the hungry. I look for the ones who want to learn, those motivated to grow, those who desire to develop and are ready to receive more from the Lord. I find that with this group I am at my best and even the simplest attempts to assist are met with gratitude and enthusiasm.

This would be my challenge to you today. Don’t waste too much time with those who seem bloated with fullness. They don’t want any more. Seek out the ones who are hungry, who see even the most bitter thing like the sweetest thing on the earth. You and they will experience the best in sport, faith and relationship as you do.