Proverbs 27:7–If you have had enough to eat, honey doesn’t taste good; but if you are really hungry, you will eat anything. (CEV)

Over the past 29 years of marriage, Sulojana and I have had the opportunity to serve meals at our house to literally hundreds of guests—family, friends, acquaintances and total strangers.

The Holy Spirit brought to my memory two separate occasions where the guests had diametrically opposite responses to the food that was placed in front of them.

One time, we invited some people we had just met for a meal, mainly because they were from our home country and were living away from their family in our town. We cooked the best possible Indian meal we could prepare.

They came, sat down at the dining table, gulped down the meal with no appreciation whatsoever and promptly left right afterwards, dashing our hopes of visiting with them and getting to know them better.

The second occasion, we were asked by a friend to put up for the night two young Korean missionaries she had met at the mall. When they got to our house, Sulojana discovered that they hadn’t eaten dinner. She quickly put together a meal from the leftovers in the fridge—very basic Indian food. Not only did they wolf it down speedily, they had seconds and thirds and could not stop thanking her for the delicious food that they had just eaten.

You don’t have to be a food critic specializing in Indian food to know that the first group of guests were treated to choice gourmet dishes. Yet they were not all that grateful. These two Korean young men, on the other hand, could not contain their gratitude for the rather plain food that we had served them.

What was the difference? It was their level of hunger.

The first group were all professionals, who had the income to afford eating out. They had likely enjoyed a good lunch earlier in the day. They did not really need the meal we served. Had we not invited them, they would have simply found a restaurant to satisfy their hunger.

The second group, on the other hand, were missionaries who lived by faith. They had no money, they simply relied on the goodness of God and the kindness of strangers for their provision. We learned that they had slept the night before in a sleeping bag under a tree and had not eaten anything the whole day when they got to our place.

Isn’t it true that our level of hunger determines how much we appreciate the Presence of God as well?

It used to puzzle me when I would hear totally different responses to the same service–some liberally sprinkled with gratitude, others punctuated by ruthless criticism.

Then it dawned on me that what made the difference was not the service, but their hunger level.

Those who came hungry devoured crumbs as though they were caviar, while those who came without hunger for more complained about the presentation of the caviar!

One of the best prayers that we could ever pray is simply this: “Lord, please give me the grace to remain hungry always for more of you.” Will you pray it with me now?