My food is ... my satisfaction

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. - Matthew 5:6

Since my freshman year of college in 2001, I've wanted a tattoo. I know: taboo.
Well, boo — I got one. I imagine most old friends can't imagine me with one, even though my close college pals have heard me say this for a long time ... and one caucasian asian has tried to talk me out of it. But I think she, along with my mom, always knew one day it would happen.

So here's the tattoo. It's on the flop side of my left wrist, right underneath where my Timex Ironman goes, when I'm wearing him.

The image is a small stick man no bigger than a quarter with a hole for a stomach. It comes from an Algonquin Indian symbol for the Hunger Moon, which was the moon representing the second month of the year, the same month I was born. The snow moon was in January, and after the snow fall, the crops died and the people hungered. This tattoo means a lot to me ... and I think that's how it should be with tattoos.

Jesus tells us on his sermon on the mount, that we can find satisfaction if we hunger after the right things. At one point in the gospels, when someone asks Jesus if he's hungry, he tells them:

MY FOOD IS TO DO THE WILL OF HE WHO SENT ME

And Job, back before Jesus' time, told God "I've hungered after your words more than my necessary food."

We will always be hungry on this earth. This is a reminder to me that eating M&Ms the rest of my life — going after the fleeting desires — won't satisfy the deep longings. But seeking the eternal, going after what God desires ... these will be the true meat that quench the profound growls of the human soul.

The Bible says our spirits groan for the kingdom come. But we don't always listen to our spirits. His word says to honor God with our bodies. And some argue a tattoo cannot honor God. I will let them argue that. We all have our own opinions about such.

But I must say, every time I look at my wrist, I am reminded of the fleeting and of the eternal ... and I hear the ache and feel the longing for a heavenly home.

Build up for yourself treasures in heaven where thieves cannot steal and moth and rust cannot destroy. -Matthew 6:20