"Empty Stomach, Full Heart"
Betty Steele Everett
When Steve Wake preached on hunger relief at First Baptist Church in Cement, Oklahoma, no one could say he didn't know his subject. He had fasted the previous four days. "When I began sermon preparation back on Monday," the pastor recalls, "I sat down at my desk right after a quick trip to the convenience store. There I was—my open Bible, a can of pop, and a package of peanuts—the irony of it all came flooding in on me. How ridiculous to be munching my way through my message. "I stopped and spent some honest time praying and thinking. I felt impressed to restrict myself to water only so I could experience hunger personally." He began his fast the next day and did not break it until Saturday evening. What he learned formed the introduction of his sermon. His text was Christ's prayer "Give us this day our daily bread" from Matthew 6. "I emphasized that many people in the world have to pray such a prayer in earnest, whereas most of us repeat it only casually." Wake's newfound compassion for the hungry apparently struck a nerve in the congregation. The closing offering for hunger relief, even though unannounced in advance, was greater than any such offering in the church's history.
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