The true servant possesses an insatiable appetite for what is right, a passionate drive for justice. Spiritually speaking, the servant is engaged in a pursuit of God. . .a hot, restless, eager longing to walk with Him, to please Him.
Eleventh-century Bernard of Clairveaux expressed it in this way in his hymn, Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts:
We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still;
We drink of Thee, the Fountain-head,
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.
Bernard's pen dripped with that insatiable appetite for God
But there is a practical side of this fourth beatitude as well. It includes not just looking upward, pursuing a vertical holiness, but also looking around and being grieved over the corruption, the inequities, the gross lack of integrity, the moral compromises that abound. The servant "hungers and thirsts" for right on earth. Unwilling simply to sigh and shrug off the lack of justice and purity as inevitable, servants press on for righteousness. Some would call them idealists or dreamers.
Hunger is my native place in the land of the passions. Hunger for fellowship, hunger for righteousness -- for a fellowship founded on righteousness, and a righteousness attained in fellowship.
Only life can satisfy the demands of life. And this hunger of mine can be satisfied for the simple reason that the nature of life is such that I can realize my individuality by becoming a bridge for others, a stone in the temple of righteousness.
Don't be afraid of yourself, live your individuality to the full -- but for the good of others. Don't copy others in order to buy fellowship, or make convention your law instead of living righteousness.
To become free and responsible. For this alone was man created. . .
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