Rabbi Hugo Gryn survived Auschwitz as a young teenager. He spoke often about those years — the scarcity, the fear, the desperate effort to preserve every scrap of food.

When Hanukkah arrived that first year, Hugo's father did something shocking. He took a small lump of margarine — precious, hoarded — and used it as fuel to light the Hanukkah candle.

Hugo was stunned. Why did you waste it?

His father looked at him and said: We know that humans can live for three weeks without food. But without hope, we cannot live properly for three days.

That has stayed with me for years.

Because Jesus said the same thing in the wilderness, in his own way. One does not live by bread alone. There is more to life than the material, the surface, the immediate. There is a deeper hunger — for meaning, for connection, for wholeness. A hunger, really, for God himself.

And here is what I know to be true: that hunger can be misdirected. We can look to the wrong things for comfort, for connection, for relief. Not bad things necessarily. Even good things — work, exercise, relationships — can become the wrong source if we are leaning on them to fill a hunger they were never meant to fill.

I think about a serious back injury I had a few years ago. For three weeks I couldn't walk. Couldn't run, couldn't surf — all the things I love, all my outlets for managing stress and anxiety, gone. And I found myself asking a question I hadn't expected: What is my life without this?

When we find ourselves in those wilderness moments, when everything we know to be true and real is stripped from us, have we learned to rely on the true source? Have we been in touch with the hunger beyond the hunger?  To know that no matter how beautiful the gift, (surfing, running) it is not the deeper source… It is not the well…

All of this raises the questions: What are you standing on today? And is it deep enough to hold you?

Prayer: God of hope, you alone are the well that does not run dry. In our wilderness moments, when the things we lean on are stripped away, may we discover that you have been there all along — deeper than our fear, stronger than our need. Amen.

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When is the last time you were just… still?

No phone. No background noise. No podcast, no news, no scrolling. Just quiet.

For most of us, that's actually hard to do. And I think that's worth paying attention to.

Because it's not just that we're busy. It's that we're compelled. Something makes us reach for the phone before we've even fully woken up. Something fills every quiet moment with noise. Something makes us check the news one more time, even though we know it's just going to stir us up.

The phone is not bad. The news is not bad. Entertainment is not bad. But the compulsion — that's worth looking at. What is driving it? What are we actually reaching for?

Jesus, in the wilderness, faced his own moment of compulsion. Hungry, tired, alone — he was offered a quick fix. Just turn these stones to bread. Make the hunger stop. Right now.

He didn't. Instead he said: One does not live by bread alone.

He wasn't dismissing the hunger. He was naming something deeper. There is a hunger beneath the hunger. And if we keep feeding the surface hunger — the phone, the noise, the distraction — we never quite get to the real one.

So here is a question to sit with today. Not as a judgment, but as an honest inquiry:

What am I compelled by? What do I reach for automatically, without even deciding to reach for it?

Just notice. That's enough for today.

Prayer: Lord, you know what we reach for when we are tired and anxious and depleted. Help us, today, to pause long enough to notice. And in that pause, may we sense you — closer than we realized. Amen.

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Today’s message was written by my friend Rev. Roger Kunkel, founder of Dial Hope.

You know, when trouble comes into our lives or when tragedy strikes, we ask, "Where is God?" And the answer is - God is in the same place he was when his son was on the cross. God does not abandon us; God is with us every step of the way. He is with us even closer than our hands and feet. And as we keep moving forward, living one day at a time, trusting in God, and doing the best we can, he moves with us; he brings us through the valley. 

In the fiftieth chapter of Genesis, this is what Joseph referred to when he said to his brothers, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good." (Genesis 50:20) What had happened was bad, but God brought good out of those terrible events. That is the good news of our faith. God is with us, and nothing, not even death, can separate us from Him. "Lo, I am with you always," - this is God's most significant promise, and when we claim that promise, it changes our lives. Now make this day a masterpiece for you are blessed to be a blessing to others. 

Prayer: God of all time, come into our lives and make us whole. As you entered time in Jesus the Christ, be born in us today and lead us to the light of your love. Be with all those in need of warmth and life and hope. Be with those who grieve. Be with those who are sick. Be with those who are afraid, that they may find themselves held in your strong arms. Lead us to your light, for we pray in the name of the light of the world, Jesus Christ. Amen. 

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Today I would like to say a special word of thanks to those of you who have supported the Dial Hope Foundation with a financial donation. Your gifts make this ministry possible!

I remember hearing about a woman who made it a habit to buy her stamps at the post office counter — even though there was a stamp machine right there in the lobby. One year, just before Christmas, the lines were especially long. Someone pointed out she could skip the wait entirely.

"I know," she said. "But the machine won't ask me about my arthritis."

That line has stayed with me.

Because in a world where nearly everything can be done faster, more efficiently, without any human contact at all — what that woman was standing in line for wasn't stamps. It was someone who knew her name. Someone who noticed her. Someone who asked.

We were made for that. Not as a preference, not as a personality type — but as a basic human need. We need real voices. We need to be seen. We need, sometimes, simply to be touched.

I am struck, reading through the Gospels, by how physical Jesus is. How often he reaches out and actually touches the people he heals. He didn't have to. But he did. Because he understood something about what it means to be human. That love, to be real, has to be incarnate. It has to show up in a body.

Today — not online, but in the actual world you move through — look for the person who might be standing in a long line just hoping someone will ask.

Make eye contact with the store clerk. Hold the hand of an elderly friend. Smile at the stranger. Hug someone who needs it.

And as you do, pay attention. Because that, too, is where God shows up.

Prayer: God of Love, in Jesus Christ you walked among us — flesh and blood. You ate with sinners. You touched the lonely and the sick. You laughed and cried and suffered. Thank you for your incarnate love. Teach us to love others as you have loved us. Amen.

Before his death, economist Robert Heilbroner offered a simple exercise. He asked his readers to imagine the following:

Take all the furniture out of your home — except one table and two chairs. Use blankets on the floor for beds.

Remove all your clothing except your oldest outfit. One pair of shoes.

Empty the refrigerator and pantry. Leave only a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt, a few potatoes, some onions, a dish of dried beans.

Shut off the water. Remove the electricity. Then take away the house itself and move the family into the tool shed. Place that shed in a shantytown.

Cancel all subscriptions — not that it matters, because now no one in the family can read. There is one radio for the entire neighborhood.

The nearest hospital is ten miles away. The family has ten dollars to its name. The head of the household farms a few acres, but a third of what he earns goes to the landlord, and a tenth to the money lender.

And life expectancy? Twenty-five years shorter than yours.

This, Heilbroner noted, is daily life for as many as a billion people in the world.

I find it hard to read that without feeling two things at once — genuine gratitude, and a quiet unease. By comparison, I have so much. Most of us do.

And our faith is not silent about what that means.

God said to Abraham: I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.

The gift was always meant to flow through, not simply to collect.

Jesus put it plainly: To those whom much is given, much will be required.

Not as a burden. As an invitation. Because here is what I have found to be true — and maybe you have too — that a life oriented around generosity is a richer life. More meaningful. More alive. We can’t do everything. But we can do something. The blessing, it turns out, flows both ways.

Prayer: Loving God, you have blessed us so richly - more than we often stop to recognize. May we never mistake the blessing for the point. You blessed us to make us a blessing. Send us out today with open hands and open hearts. Amen.

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