Welcome back everyone, wow it’s been a little while. I’m BJ Sipe, and you’re listening to the Set Your Mind Above podcast – where everyday ordinary events teach us extraordinary eternal truths. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today, I am excited to share different parts of my life and my faith with you, and I sure hope that you’ll do the same with me along the way.
Our last podcast aired a little over three weeks ago where I explained that we were going to be taking a little bit of a break from the podcast. I had a youth lectureship that I was helping to teach in Boise, Idaho, and then spent a few weeks in Oregon with family and friends for a summer break. I wish I could say I’m returning refreshed, unfortunately at the end of our trip all of us got sick and we had to move our flight back several days. I’m still fighting a touch of whatever it is off, but I’m doing much better than my wife is at this point, bless her heart. Honestly, that was the least of our travel woes with this past trip. Our trips out West didn’t exactly go as planned for either of us. When Kylie and the kids flew out of Nashville, they only had 4 Southwest attendants checking bags, so it took over an hour to check luggage. They missed their flight and had to be rerouted on their way to Oregon. Mine was even worse. I was originally supposed to leave Louisville at 7 am, layover in Chicago, then land in Boise a few short hours later at 11 am. However, that is not what happened. We sat on the tarmac for about and hour before our plane was brought back to the gate for mechanical failure. We were asked to deboard, then me and one other fellow were called to the front gate. We were informed that we were the only 2 passengers going on to Boise, and that the soonest they could get is there was midnight, 13 hours later than originally scheduled. I couldn’t believe it, what a long day it was about to be. I found a Starbucks and sat for about 4 hours before our next flight would leave around 1:30 pm. I was told that my layovers now would be Chicago, Denver, then Boise. That’s not bad I suppose. So we landed in Chicago, I made my layover and was sitting at my gate when I struck up a conversation with the person next to me as we were boarding. “So why are you going to Houston?” they asked. “Houston?” I said, “Isn’t this going to Denver?” “No, this flight is going to Houston,” she responded. I quickly grabbed an attendant and found out that this plane would eventually go to Denver, but it had to go to Houston first and I would just stay on the plane. There was only one problem – I hadn’t grabbed more to eat in Chicago because I thought I would be landing in Denver in just a few hours and eat there. The planes are serving no food because of Covid, and I couldn’t get food in Houston when we did the layover because I had to stay on the plane. 7 hours later we landed in Denver at almost 10 pm at night, and wouldn’t you know it…everything was closed. I went from restaurant to restaurant, begging with them to get me something to go because they still had seated customers, but no one would help me. I was famished. It had been almost 14 hours since I had eaten, and it was going to be a whole lot longer. I found a vending machine that had peanuts in it and grabbed the 3 bags it had left to try and tide me over. At that point I would have eaten anything. You could have offered me livers and lima beans I would have eaten it. Finally, I landed in Boise, Idaho at 12:30 am (2:30 am my body’s time), only to find out they lost my luggage, and I would have to come back the next day. That took some time to sort out, so by the time Rich and I finally got to his house where I was staying, it was around 2 am. We walked in the door, and I made a b-line for the fridge. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich…and let me tell you, that was the most delicious sandwich I have ever tasted. The story is much more detailed than this, as many other things went wrong, and I’d be happy to share the details with you if you shoot me a message. What’s the worst experience you’ve had with flying? I’d love to hear it, because this takes the cake for me.
I don’t remember ever having been that hungry in a very long time. But I want to tell you another story to segway into our lesson today. I saw an entirely different kind of hunger while I was in Boise during the youth lectureship. We had already had three sessions of teaching by Saturday afternoon before we all rafted down the river for about three hours. What was then on the schedule was dinner and games for all the kids at the park, followed by the older group all headed to a different home for karaoke, games and ice cream. However, that’s not what happened. I sat down next to one of the young girls that was eating alone at the park and pretty soon other young campers joined us. We sat and visited for a while, but then one of the young boys (probably 10 years old) asked, “Hey, can we ask you some more questions we have about the Bible?” “Absolutely!” I responded. What then happened was amazing. For the next 45 minutes, instead of playing games, more and more of the kids gathered around and we continued in an impromptu Bible study. Both Forrest and I took turns answering their questions and listening their responses. Our study ended simply because we ran out of time and I was needed at the next location to spend time with the older kids. Upon arriving, the older kids all sat around getting ready to play games and eat more ice cream when one of the kids said, “Hey, we ran out of time this morning with your last lesson. Can we finish it?” So that’s exactly what we did. Instead of karaoke, we opened up the Bible and spent another hour in the Word together. We ended in prayer and by that time I was in tears – these kids were so inspiring to me. They had a hunger that was unmatched, not for food, but for what they truly needed – the bread of life.
Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” I want to ask you a question now, and then ask it again…are you hungry? Take a moment to consider your faith & your relationship with Jesus, is it just another part of your life, or is it your driving force? If we are being honest, perhaps hungry would not be the accurate term to describe how we feel. When Jesus says that one is to hunger and thirst for righteousness, I think about how I felt at the end of those long flights. My stomach was growling, I didn’t feel well, and the only thing I could think about was getting food. It wasn’t something I could go without; it was something that I needed, and I would have taken anything to satisfy my stomach. Do you need Jesus like that? Do you need the Word like that? We might say that we do, but let’s look at the evidence and see if it matches our claim. What does your prayer life look like? If you are barely praying each day, or perhaps not at all, does that reflect a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness? If you never pick up the Bible, save for when you are in worship, and never reflect on the truths of God’s will during the day, can you really say you crave and need the Word? Perhaps in your self-examination you feel unfulfilled spiritually in your life….well, maybe it’s because you’re not eating. Like these kids, you’ve got to be hungry for the Word, hungry for the chance to reflect on God & his truth, and take every opportunity you can to do so. When we do this, Jesus promises that such a one will truly be satisfied. Only when your need for Jesus is greater than anything else will you finally be fulfilled. So I’ll ask again…are you hungry?
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Tune in, Tuesday-Fridays, as a new podcast episode will be uploaded each day. Also, be sure to follow the Facebook page for the Set Your Mind Above podcast for future announcements and weekly video sessions that are uploaded on Saturdays. As you have the opportunity, share these thoughts with your friends and family, and share with me what important lessons you are learning from every day, ordinary events. Until next time know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.