March 13, 2025 (Day 8, pages 46–50)
The math seems so simple.
Want less + feel less = ache less.
But if we aren’t careful, we’ll spend a lifetime working at a misidentified problem. If we think hunger is the problem, we try to eliminate it—starving ourselves of desire, convincing ourselves we don’t need, don’t long, don’t ache.
But the hunger was never the problem. So many of us have spent years numbing ourselves, filling the silence with noise, losing hours to (de)vices. And yet the longing remains. Not because something is missing, but because something real is calling us deeper.
C.S. Lewis called it “inconsolable longing”—a desire too deep for words, too persistent to ignore.
Henri Nouwen spoke of it as restlessness, the ache of a heart that hasn’t yet found its way home.
“Restless is our heart,” St. Augustine wrote, “until it comes to rest in Thee.”
In today’s reading, Nadeau faces his hunger head-on. The moment he stops numbing himself, the ache remains. He’s tempted to believe something is broken in him, that the hunger itself is a flaw.
The hunger isn’t the problem.
You aren’t a problem to be solved.
You are cherished and the longing of your heart is holy.
It’s calling you home.
______________________________________________
I Wonder…
- I wonder where I’ve been numbing my hunger instead of listening to it?
- I wonder how my desires might actually be leading me toward God?
- I wonder where I’ve mistaken apathy for peace?
- I wonder what it would look like to be honest about what I truly long for?
- I wonder where God is inviting me to rest today?
____________________
This Reflection is Part of a Lenten Journey
This Lent, we’re making space for something deeper—reading Room for Good Things to Run Wild by Josh Nadeau. No book club, no meetings—just a daily invitation to reflect, in whatever way feels right for you.
Learn more, access the reading calendar, and join the journey here.
