Hunger

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Matthew 5:6 | NIV

This is my word for 2026. 

HUNGER

I don’t always pick a word for the year but 2025 was a revealing year. In the eyes of the world I accomplished much. I saw many dreams from my childhood come true, huge milestones achieved, precious memories with my family cemented, and this business open up possibilities for the future we never had before.

But as I stand on the shore of 2026 and stare at the horizon of the second half of my life…

I want SO MUCH MORE.

Not more things or experiences or accomplishments. But more of God. More of His presence. More of His Spirit. More of His voice and His power and His conviction and His peace.

The more of the world I’ve put in my hands the more I experience the hollowness of it all. 

Augustine was right. He identified humanity’s ache—

“Thou hast formed us for Thyself,

and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

St. Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)

Even as a pastor myself, I’m not immune to the cunning schemes of the enemy to fill my calendar and my storehouse with counterfeit idols that promise satisfaction but never truly deliver.

John Piper knows this too—

If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.

John Piper (A Hunger for God)

This year I want to want God more. I’m praying now for an increasing hunger and thirst for nothing less than all of God. I want to know Him, really really know Him. Not just with my head but with my heart and soul.

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

John 17:3 | NIV

This intimate, personal, deep and conscious knowledge of God is the beginning and end of eternal life, life to the full.

The idea of God will not satisfy.

Correct belief will not satisfy. (Jas. 2:19 – Demons believe and shutter)

Correct theology will not satisfy. (1 Cor. 13 – posses all knowledge and faith but no love)

Correct behavior will not satisfy. (Matt. 7:23 – away from me, I never knew you)

Only Jesus will satisfy. Only Jesus.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 4:13-14 | NIV