Trouble with Trail Snacks

If you’ve ever spent a long day on the trail in the middle of a dry Arizona spring, you know how your body eventually starts to talk to you. At first, it’s just a quiet suggestion for water. But five miles in, that suggestion turns into a demand. You start dreaming of a cold drink or a real meal.

However, there’s a trap many of us fall into on the trail. We get a little tired, so we reach into the side pocket of the pack for a quick hit of sugar. A handful of candy or a processed snack bar gives us a momentary spike, but it doesn’t actually fuel the climb. If you spend the whole day snacking on junk, you’ll find that when you finally sit down for a real meal, you aren’t actually hungry for it. Your appetite hasn’t been satisfied — it’s just been dulled.

It’s exactly what happens in our spiritual lives. Most of us aren’t “rebels” in the classic sense. We don’t wake up hating God. We’re just bored. We feel a deep, God-given ache for meaning and we try to satisfy it with “snacks” from the world.

Mmmm … The “Product”

There was a video circulating of a fast-food CEO taking a “big bite” of a new flagship burger (a.k.a. “product”) for a social media promo. The internet immediately roasted him because he looked like he was having an unpleasant experience. His face didn’t show craving or delight. It looked like a chore.

It’s a convicting image. When we sit down to read the Bible or spend time in prayer, do our faces look like that? Does it feel like a “to-do” list we’re forcing ourselves to swallow?

If we’re honest, Netflix often feels more compelling than Scripture. The phone feels more “rewarding” than prayer. We feel ashamed by these kinds of thoughts, thinking that if we really loved God, we’d naturally crave Him. But the problem isn’t that God is bland. The problem is that our taste buds have been trained by someone else.

Blessing of the Ache

Jesus flips the script on our boredom.

In our world, we think the satisfied, comfortable people are the blessed ones. But Jesus says the good life belongs to the hungry. Hunger is a mercy. It means your soul hasn’t gone completely numb yet. It means there’s still a part of you that recognizes a substitute when it sees one.

Hungering for righteousness isn’t just about “trying harder to be a better person.” It’s a deep ache for things to be put right — for the crooked parts of our lives and our world to be made straight. It’s a refusal to settle for what is hollow.

Training the Palate

Spiritual growth is directly connected to appetite. And as any nutritionist will tell you, your appetite is shaped by what you’ve been eating.

In 1 Peter 2:1-3, we’re told to “long for the pure spiritual milk.” But if you’ve been “snacking” on noise, outrage, and social media feeds all day, you won’t want the steak of the Word for dinner. You aren’t full in a healthy way. You’re just dulled by junk.

It’s an ancient struggle. When Israel was in the wilderness, God gave them manna — bread from heaven. But they started to complain. They actually craved the “garlic and onions” of Egypt. They missed the flavor of their own bondage because they were used to it.

Our modern “onions” are the constant stimulation and image management of our digital lives. And when we finally open the Bible and it feels flat, it isn’t because the Word has lost its power. It’s because our taste buds are exhausted.

You Become What You Consume

Where you go to satisfy your hunger reveals where you actually expect life to come from. Psalm 115 gives us a sobering warning about idols. It describes them as having eyes that can’t see and ears that can’t hear. They are numb and dead. The conclusion in verse 8 is the real kicker: “Those who make them become like them.”

If you feed on what’s numb, you become numb. If you spend your week feasting on digital distraction, your heart eventually feels dull. We often assume God is the one whose gone distant, but more likely, we’ve just spent our week feasting at a table that can’t actually feed us.

A Feast in the Dry Place

God doesn’t shame us for being hungry. He simply redirects our desire to what is life-giving. In Psalm 63, David is in a literal wilderness. He’s thirsty and tired. Yet he says his soul is “satisfied as with rich food.” He found a feast in a dry place because he knew which table to sit at.

The Christian hope isn’t that we have to “fix” our desires before we can come to God. Jesus says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). He doesn’t meet our boredom with a lecture. He meets it with an invitation.

Wrapping Up

What’s actually been feeding you lately? Take a look at your “trail snacks” from this past week. You can’t munch on digital noise all day and wonder why the things of God feel bland. If your appetite feels dull today, don’t leave with a sense of guilt. Just realize that you’re finally waking up to how hungry you actually are. Stop trying to satisfy an infinite hunger with a handful of salt.

Come honestly. Come thirsty. Come with the distracted heart and the dull appetite. The King isn’t interested in your performance at the table. He just wants you to join the feast.

This post was adapted from the Unveiled teaching series, originally shared at the Plainfield Church of Christ.