Hunger, Bread and Stone

In Matthew, Jesus says, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).

I read this a few weeks ago and thought, that is so not my experience with God. My experience is more appropriately summarized in a slightly altered John Green quote: “[God] is not a wish granting factory” (The Fault in Our Stars).

Lots of things I’ve prayed for did happen. My sister was safe on her mission. I got into grad school. My friends received some measure of healing. I received comfort. People were safe traveling, and I found friends. But my prayers are also full of things I didn’t get, including grad schools I didn’t get into and nights I didn’t feel comfort and friends I lost.

It’s worth noting that Jesus does not seem to promise that we will get what we will ask for, find what we look for, or that the door we’re knocking on will be the one that opens. Although Jesus does say “it” shall be given and “it” shall be opened, these pronouns don’t have an antecedent, at least in the English (Matthew 7:7). Verbs, not nouns, come before the pronouns, making it grammatically unclear whether or not the things that are asked for are the things that are given.

This lack of clarity continues later in the chapter. Jesus says, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11). Jesus promises good things—but he doesn’t promise bread or fish. We won’t get a stone or a snake, but that’s not the same thing as getting the “it” we asked for. God isn’t a wish granting factory.

There are a lot of things I’m glad I didn’t get. There are jobs I shouldn’t have had, and schools I’m glad didn’t work out, blessings that would have been curses. I’m grateful that sometimes God hears my prayers and says, “Man, are you asking for a stone. Absolutely not.” I’m grateful that God knows me better than I know me, that He knows how to give good gifts.

I’m grateful, but I’m also afraid. There are a lot doors I’ve been knocking on for a while, and nothing seems to be opening. Some of these prayers are existential questions—theological, social, political—and some of them are so personal, they’re nearly biological. Prayers about people I miss and purpose I want to feel, prayers about not being depressed and the world not being terrifying.

Adam Miller calls wanting but not having “hunger” (Letters to a Young Mormon 71). Simone Weil calls it a “void” (Grace and Gravity 10). Both of them agree that it is a good thing. Miller says that “Hunger marks your openness to the world, your dependence on it…. This open vulnerability to people and food and air is not a curse but a gift” (73). Weil says “Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it” (11). They say when we have need the only thing to do is sit with it. To put our arms around our hunger and tell it everything is OK and we’re glad it’s here. Not to try and fill the void, to let ourselves feel the hunger. (Ew.) Both Weil and Miller say that when we do this, God comes in with grace, and we know Him and ourselves better.

I’m not very good at sitting with my hunger. One of my deep dark fears is of being needy, so when I start to desperately want, I also start wanting to not need anything. I try to take care of everything and not ask for anything, because I feel like if I start asking, I might not be able to stop. I think, somewhere in me, I believe that if I was perfect I wouldn’t ever need. If only I was perfect then I would never feel alone, I would never want, I would never be afraid.

Believing that hunger is a result of sin is weird for someone who believes in Jesus. Three chapters before Jesus preached about God’s good gifts he went out into the wilderness to fast for forty days, and at the end of this time he was “hungered” (Matthew 4:2). Satan showed up and tempted Jesus, and I imagine Satan, who is smart, tempted Jesus with the things he was hungry for—food (bread), recognition (to be saved by angels publicly), and power (to claim the kingdoms that were rightfully his).

What I like about this story is it suggests that desire is not a sin. Jesus was perfect and he still wanted. He needed people and food, he hungered for recognition and affirmation, and sometimes he was afraid.

Christ in the Wilderness, Briton Riviere

As I’ve muddled through thoughts of hunger and needing, I find myself thinking about fasting, the voluntary hunger we find in many religions. We sometimes talk about fasting as practice for not needing, but Hal Edmonson says fasting “is an exercise not in discipline, maybe, but failure…. The point isn’t that you’ll transcend it with stoic grace, but because you won’t be able to. Think about what it is that Jesus suggests fasting on... The real kind of fast that Jesus is interested in, it seems, are the things that are so alloyed with who we are that there is no giving them up” (“What We Really Hunger For”). For Edmonson, fasting is practice humility. It’s acknowledging that we don’t have everything we need, that we are not self-sufficient.

I think I’m comforted by this because what I’m doing right now does feel like an exercise in failure. I don’t think I’m holding my void like Weil advises, and I’m not as good at caring for my hunger as Miller would want. But I am sure as heck not transcending it with stoic grace, and Edmonson says that’s the point. I am full of need and vulnerability, and I’m not pretending otherwise, because I can’t. I can only pray and knock and ask and seek and trust that God gives good gifts, even if I don’t see them, even if they’re not here yet, or even if, right now, my hunger is the gift.