by Tad Lindley
Bed bugs bite people while they are sleeping, and then sneak back under the mattress before daybreak so they don’t get caught. Lice live in your hair and bite you to drink your blood and then lay their eggs and go back and drink some more blood. Ticks on the other hand are eight legged creatures that tend to burrow between the gaps in your clothing and sink their mouth parts into the victim. Often they are too small to get noticed. That changes though, because they start drinking blood and getting fuller and fuller and fuller, until they are about ready to burst. Thus the saying that people in tick country often use after heavy eating, “I’m fuller than a tick!”
Jesus’ recipe for getting fuller than a tick
You might have missed it when you’ve read the Bible, but Jesus gave a recipe that is guaranteed to get you fuller than a tick. It is found in Matthew 5:6: Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Jesus knew that we as humans tend to fill ourselves with things that are not good for us. People stay up all night playing video games, and then are ineffective at work. We will drink or shoot dope until all the money and all the friends have run out. People are trying to get fully satisfied with pornography or with bouncing from one relationship to another. Still others keep thinking, “If I can just get enough education, or enough money, or enough fans, or shoot enough 3-pointers, or have the flyest snow machine in town, then I will be fulfilled.” Unfortunately, none of those things lead to being fulfilled in life. Jesus knew that, and he nailed it. Matthew 5:6 admonishes us to quit chasing after the highs of the world, and instead to hunger and thirst for righteousness. If we do that, we will be fuller than a tick.
King Solomon started out fuller than a tick
When you read about the life of Solomon, you see that he was fuller than a tick. One night the Lord came to Solomon and said, “What do you want? Ask for it and I will give it to you.” (I Kings 3:5) What would you ask for? Solomon was young at this time, and he was hungry and thirsty for righteousness, so instead of asking for a lot of money and a lot of power and a new Honda, he instead asked God for the wisdom to be a good king over God’s people; he wanted the will of God for his life! This impressed the Lord so much that he told Solomon, “I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings.” (I Kings 3:12-13 NIV)
…but then, 699 wives later…
Unfortunately something happened to Solomon. He stopped hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and he started trying to stuff himself full of the things of this world. The story is sad. He ended up with 700 wives and 300 concubines. But it wasn’t just in the sexual arena that he caved into the world. Read the book of Ecclesiastes and you will see that he allowed himself to hunger after anything and everything and as a result ended up an empty man. “Meaningless, meaningless”, says the teacher I [Solomon], “everything is meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 12:8 NIV)
Ruth: hopeless, but hungry for righteousness
Why don’t you read the book of Ruth tonight. She was a very young widow with no children. Her husband was dead, her father-in-law was dead. There were no male relatives to provide for her. The obvious choice was for her to ditch her mother-in-law and get a new husband and start over. But Ruth was not hungry for the things of this world. She was determined to honor her mother-in-law, and so even though it meant that the remainder of her life she would be destined to be a victim of racism, and to never remarry, and to never have her own children, she chose what was righteous.
Ruth: fuller than a tick
Ruth followed her mother-in-law back to Israel and began trying to provide for her. Whether she realized it or not, she was following Jesus’ recipe for fullness. Within a year she was married to a very important man. Not only that, she would give birth to a son who would one day have a grandson named David. David would become king over Israel, and from his descendants would come the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
As much as we might hunger and thirst for the things that the world values, there is nothing better than hungering and thirsting for the righteousness of God in our lives. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. If you are empty, get filled, fuller than a tick.
Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, Alaska.
