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I joined Youth with a Mission in my twenties and participated in a six-month Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Australia. After several months of lectures, training, and preparation, the school split us into different outreach teams and sent us on a mission trip to another country for six weeks. 

My team ended up in Vanuatu. If you watched one of the original seasons of Survivor, you might remember Vanuatu. Located in the South Pacific Islands, near Fiji, it is incredibly beautiful, remote, and mostly undeveloped. I like to describe it as paradise with lots of flies. We lived in villages and learned about the beauty and hardships of life on the island. After days and weeks of ministry, attending nightly church services, taking cold showers or not getting a shower, sleeping on church floors, interacting non-stop with the locals, and eating the same meal every day, we were exhausted. Each day started to feel like a week. Culture shock is real, and I struggled to overcome feelings of wanting to fly back to the creature comforts I knew so well. There was only one thing that truly sustained me during that outreach – my Bible. 

As roosters began to crow at daybreak and as enough light would allow, I would open my Bible every morning and consume each word, verse, chapter, and book. It became alive to me. When every environmental circumstance felt uncomfortable, God’s Word brought comfort. On multiple occasions, I remember thinking, “If I had to choose between eating today or reading my Bible, which would I choose?” The answer was simple in that season – give me my Daily Bread! 

I would like to say that from that day until now, I have always craved God’s Word in a way that felt more important than food, but that would not be the truth. The creature comforts I experience in my everyday life have a way of making me less dependent and less hungry. But what I do know is that God’s Word brings life. It fills me up in a way that food never can. “Man shall not live on bread alone” (Matthew 4:4).

Reflection: When was the last time you truly felt hungry and needed God’s Word? Were you going through a particular season or circumstance in life? If that hunger has subsided, ask God to give you a renewed hunger so that every word from His mouth may fill you!

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