“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6). Why is it that after we have repented and gotten on the right path and are praying and exercising faith and serving our brothers and sisters, and in short, living a righteous life, nevertheless all of those old hungers and cravings and temptations continue to assail us? I don't have a clear answer for why this must be, but the Savior left us with His blessing that as often as the hunger returns, even after our exemplary righteousness, we shall be filled. If we truly want to be disciples of Jesus Christ, then this is the pattern that our lives will take - periods of righteousness, followed by hunger and thirst, then we are filled with the Holy Ghost and are righteous once more, and then hungry, and then filled, and on and on. As long as we hold fast to the promise that we will be filled with the grace and Spirit of the Lord in our times of need, we do not have to fear or become frustrated when all of the old familiar demons come back to haunt us. Yes, no matter how righteous we are living and how desperately we desire to live a perfect life, after the righteousness comes the hunger and the thirst, but blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. We can choose to look at our lives as hunger-filled, nasty, brutish and short, interrupted intermittently by small moments of righteousness, or we can view our lives as being essentially oriented towards peace and joy punctuated frequently but hopefully briefly with bouts of hunger and thirst. We decide whether or not we will bite the hand that feeds us merely because we do not like the fact that we can't get rid of hunger permanently. Or we can pray with gratitude and sincere faith for the Father to give us this day our daily bread, and then pray again tomorrow after we are hungry once more.
