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Hunger is one of the most powerful forces in human life. When we are truly hungry, little else seems to matter until that hunger is satisfied. But perhaps there is more to hunger than we realize. I invite you to read more….

The Bible tells us explicitly to feed the hungry. When we read those words, most of us immediately picture someone without enough food—a starving child, a homeless person, or a family struggling to put dinner on the table. There is no doubt that Jesus calls us to notice those who are physically hungry and to feed them.

Perhaps, though, we sometimes think we don’t encounter many truly hungry people in our everyday lives. We should all reexamine that assumption. I think we encounter hungry people every single day. The problem is that we frequently fail to recognize their hunger.

Some people are hungry to be noticed. Others are hungry for affection. Someone may be starving for acceptance, while someone else desperately needs encouragement. An elderly neighbor may be hungry to know that someone still cares. A teenager may be starving to know that he or she belongs. A grieving friend may hunger for someone willing to sit quietly and listen.

Some are hungry for forgiveness, companionship, hope, or simply the assurance that they still matter. Perhaps the most difficult people to recognize are those who appear to have everything together while quietly starving inside. Hunger has many faces, and many of them look nothing like the image that first comes to mind when we hear the word hungry.

Psalm 107 describes people wandering in the desert unable to find their way. They were hungry and thirsty, and their souls were fainting within them. Finally, they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and God delivered them. We are told that God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things (Psalm 107:4-9). Perhaps we need to learn to recognize hunger the way God does.

Instead of merely asking whether the people around us have enough food, maybe we should begin asking a different question: What are the people God places in front of us hungry for? Sometimes feeding the hungry will absolutely mean providing groceries, serving at a soup kitchen, supporting a food pantry, or buying a meal for someone who cannot afford one. Physical hunger is real, and as followers of Christ, we are called to respond to it.

But sometimes the nourishment someone desperately needs cannot be placed on a plate. It may be our time, attention, encouragement, patience, forgiveness, compassion, friendship, or love. Something that costs us very little may be exactly what another person has been starving to receive.

We should also remember that we are hungry too. Every one of us carries hungers that other people cannot see. We hunger to be loved, understood, accepted, valued, and forgiven. We hunger for meaning and purpose. We hunger for peace when life becomes chaotic. We hunger to know that our lives matter. Ultimately, whether we recognize it or not, we hunger for God.

Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and that the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). Perhaps loving our neighbor begins with learning to recognize what our neighbor is hungry for. We cannot respond to a hunger that we never take the time to see.

Jesus makes this even more personal in Matthew 25. He tells us that He was hungry and we either fed Him or failed to feed Him. Those listening ask the obvious question: When did we ever see You hungry? His answer should stop us in our tracks. Whatever we did—or failed to do—for one of the least among us, we did or failed to do for Him (Matthew 25:40, 45).

So perhaps the question for us today is not simply, “Will we feed the hungry?” Perhaps the more difficult question is, “Will we recognize them?” The hungry Christ may walk past us today, and He may not have an empty stomach. He may have an empty heart.

He may be the lonely neighbor we don’t have time for, the spouse we’ve stopped noticing, the coworker who desperately needs encouragement, or the friend whose pain makes us uncomfortable. He may be the person sitting alone whom everyone else walks past, the family member who needs forgiveness, or the stranger who simply needs to be treated as though he or she matters. We can walk past hungry people every day without ever seeing them.

Someday we may stand before Jesus and ask, “Lord, when did we see You hungry?” Perhaps His answer will be, “Every day. You just didn’t recognize Me.” Today, let’s ask God to help us look beyond appearances, recognize the hunger in the people He places in our path, and then do what Jesus asked us to do: feed them.

I wrote the song OPEN OUR EYES to add emphasis to today’s message. Click below to listen.

Heavenly Father, open our eyes to the hungry people You place in our path. Feed the deepest hunger within us, and use us to bring Your love, hope, compassion, and mercy to those who hunger around us. Help us recognize Your Son in every person we meet. Amen.

AMDG

AMDG is a Latin abbreviation for “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,” which means “For the Greater Glory of God.”

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Brian Pusateri

Brian is a Christian author and speaker. Brian, a lifelong Catholic, felt his life was forever changed when God spoke to his heart while attending an eight day silent Christian retreat in November of 2011. Soon after that retreat Brian founded 4th Day Letters and Broken Door Ministries. With the God inspired message of mercy and unconditional love that was placed on his heart during that retreat, Brian has been impacting others all over the country and around the world with his weekly letters, his talks, and his all day Christian retreats. In June of 2014, Brian’s life was again impacted in a very dramatic way when his eyesight suddenly became permanently impaired. The initial diagnosis was Multiple Scleroses (MS) but in December of 2019 the diagnosis was corrected to MOG antibody disease, a rare neurological disease. This health challenge has only served to draw Brian closer to God and bolster the importance of this timely yet ageless message.

Latest posts by Brian Pusateri (see all)

• Hungry - September 7, 2026
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