Imagination Station

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matthew 5:6).

We are all on this mountainside, our attention riveted on Jesus. Our spirits are alert as they've never been before. Every word from His mouth is manna to our hungry and thirsty souls.

What is this sense of understanding, of revelation, that we're experiencing? I never before considered hunger and thirst to be a particularly positive thing, did you? Why does Jesus seem to think it is?

Well, if it is, looks like I'm—like we're—among the blessed. How did that happen?! Maybe just by showing up here?—obviously famished for what Jesus is serving?

Come to think of it, I do feel blessed. How about you?

Down there in the valley I sure never felt among the blessed. No way was I good enough, smart enough, well-positioned enough in that world. No way was I included there.  Inclusion was limited to the self-presumed righteous ones.

The way Jesus is talking, that way is upside-down.

It sounds like He's saying showing up and being with Him is the right-side-up way. Or even just longing to show up and be with Him.

If that's true, then being starved is really good, right? Because it drives us to action. It drove us up this mountainside, didn't it? It's driving us to sit here in this hot dry place to soak up living water, isn't it?

I don't want to leave here. I look around. Obviously nobody else wants to leave here either.

But—sigh—we have to. After all, we have lives down there in that upside-down-world.

As we make our way down the mountainside, helping the children jump the stones and the elderly navigate around them, talking about what has just happened,  you remind us of the rest of what Jesus said about being hungry and thirsty for righteousness.

“You will be filled,” He said.

Be filled. Hm. Being filled means having something inside. Filled doesn't require carrying, dragging, or hauling something. Being filled means we have something that can be poured out. And since what we are filled with is righteousness, that must be what we have to pour out.

I'm getting it. Jesus poured righteousness into us. Now we're filled. Now we will pour righteousness into others, into the ones we live with in our upside-down-world.

 Imagine once again, slowly.

1 Comment

I really do hunger and thirst for righteousness and His presence, "As a deer pants for water my soul pants for Thee." I am only truly at peace and filled with joy when I yearn for and accept His righteousness and presence. My great desire is to please God.

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