STAY HUNGRY!

1 Kings 3:3-4:34; Acts 6:1-15; Psalm 126:1-6; Proverbs 16:26-27

“The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. So God replied, ‘Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life!’”

“But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent.”

“Restore our fortunes, Lord, as streams renew the desert. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.”

“It is good for workers to have an appetite; an empty stomach drives them on.”

There’s a saying in sports many coaches use to motivate successful teams and keep them from resting on their laurels. “Stay hungry!” It’s a reminder that when we stop growing, we start to die. When we stop learning, we become fools. When we become self-satisfied, we begin the journey to sloth and apathy. There is a world of difference between contentment and complacency. It’s the difference between life and death. Contentment sets a firm foundation that leaves one’s heart and mind open to potential and new ideas. It frees us from the burden and obsession of always striving for things we do not have, even as it prepares us to reach out for the unexpected. Like a tree well fed and cared for, we remain free to bloom and grow, confident in our roots but always willing to expand when circumstances are right. Complacency, however, stifles growth. Complacency’s focus is on what is, not what could be. Consequently, complacency never sees the intangible promise of life, and it is typically fatalistic. This is most likely why even God entreats his children to stay hungry. An empty or half-filled soul that seeks out the Spirit is a delight to the Father. A stunted soul which just accepts things as they are has little likelihood of discovering grace and almost no chance of blessing without a major shift in perspective.

Solomon’s choice of wisdom over riches is a case study in the spiritual importance of contentment. As David’s son and heir to the throne, the last thing Solomon needed was more stuff. As a young king, he needed to get beyond the trappings of personal wealth and power to understand his people. Contentment gave Solomon the ability to see his real need. Complacency would, like as not, never have believed God’s offer was real. It would not have seen God’s bounty as an opportunity to govern better. It would have seen little but the chance to protect what Solomon already possessed. In his contentment, though, Solomon was free to grow as a person and acknowledge his need for greater wisdom without being defensive about not yet having all the necessary royal skills of diplomacy and statesmanship. Whatever his political clout and treasury may have been at the time, Solomon was wise enough on his own to understand that one of the most difficult things to hang onto is wholeness, and it is never done through complacency or without effort and the exercise of wisdom.

Throughout history, the more the Church has matured and mellowed, the more complacent it has become and the more internal its focus has gotten. The Body is becoming ingrown, which accounts for a lot of its inside conflicts. Its disciples, being mired in complacency, have little to do but complain. Show me, for example, a church without a healthy missions ministry serving others at personal sacrifice, and I will show you a church on the verge of spiritual abandonment if not outright death. God will not stick with any congregation which feels its mission has been accomplished with the building of a sanctuary and Sunday worship. Church is supposed to be a dangerous place, a place of miraculous change and growth, a place where one cannot afford to be complacent. A healthy Church is a group of believers that lives and teaches contentment in Christ and growth in the Spirit.

Most any kind of discord usually begins with those who have gotten complacent. Vision makes them nervous because it disturbs their complacency, so they tend to fight it. We need to constantly ask the Lord for the ability to identify and challenge complacency whenever our brothers and sisters begin to develop a sense of self-satisfaction or, worse, entitlement. Satan never sleeps, so we shouldn’t either, and we do so at our peril.