Give us each day our daily bread … lend me three loaves of bread … because of his boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs … you wouldn’t give your hungry child a snake instead of a fish, a scorpion in place of an egg, would you?  How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:1-13).

This week’s passage is a hungry one!  The disciples are hungry to learn more about prayer, about praying the way Jesus prays.  He teaches them to ask God for, among other things, daily bread.  He tells a story about a man awakened in the middle of the night by a neighbor who needs food for an unexpected visitor.  And Jesus ends with a picture of how even not-always-very-good earthly fathers, when it comes to quieting their hungry children, still know the difference between a snake and a fish, a scorpion and an egg.

What are we hungry for?  All kinds of things – the list is endless!  We hunger for the basic necessities, for love, for recognition and dignity, for hope, for meaning and purpose, for peace, for happiness, for forgiveness, for reconciliation, for –

You get the idea.  We are endlessly hungry.

But for what, really?  We all have experienced it: we finally get what we thought we most hungered for – and five minutes later, that gnawing in the pit of our gut starts all over again.

What you’re really hungry for, Jesus says, what you most need, is God: to know God, to love God, to live a God-filled, God-shaped, God-soaked, God-glorifying life.  Sure, we need bread and eggs and fish, a roof over our heads, and many of the things we hunger for.  But actually, all those things we need are already “in” God.

God our Father purposes our salvation, our healing and wholeness, our nourishment in the things that make for real life, our reconciliation and restoration.  Jesus is God-in-our-flesh, accomplishing Father’s saving, loving purpose through his life, death, resurrection and ascension.

And God the Holy Spirit takes all that Father purposes, all that Son has achieved, and brings it into the lives of ordinary people like us –

People hungry enough for God to ask God to give us, even us, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Ask your Father, in the Name of Jesus, to give you his Holy Spirit.  Ask, today, tomorrow, and keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.