Hungry for Air… Hungry for God

Not long after my actual cancer diagnosis, I started to experience hypoxemia (insufficient oxygen in the blood) and shortness of breath.

If we go back to the afternoon of my dad’s death, February 16, that might be the first time I really noticed breathing problems. We brought dad home from Vanderbilt Medical Center on Saturday February 14 after several weeks of dealing with complications from a fall that resulted in a “brain bleed” and by 5pm on Monday February 16th he was gone. As we were waiting for the local funeral to come and transport his body, I decided I needed to go for a quick jog to process, pray, and distract.

Several times during that brief 2-mile jaunt, I had to stop and catch my breath. And that’s one of the first times I remember coughing up some blood. Looking back, that’s when I first realized something was seriously wrong with my body and especially my lungs.

Fast forward to the week of diagnosis (officially March 3) and I ended up in the hospital for the first time because of the pain. By the time I was discharged on March 9th supplemental oxygen had become necessary and I began to understand what it was like to get “hungry” for air, or oxygen more specifically.

Over the next two weeks, all the tumors in both lungs seemed to be growing and then the pulmonary embolism was discovered, all contributing to more difficulty breathing so that by Monday evening March 23rd, we were making another trip to the Emergency Department and by the time we arrived, I was experiencing “air hunger” for the first time. I simply couldn’t get enough air. My breathing was too shallow.

The cancer had just claimed too much real estate in my lungs. So this added an element of panic and anxiety to the experience that was about to get much worse. Within 24 hrs I was “upgraded” to the biPAP mask-machine which is a non-invasive alternative to intubation when someone is experiencing air hunger and some level of respiratory failure. This was about the time when it was suggested that my family be nearby “just in case” and we were asked more directly about intubation if it came to that.  My mouth and throat were SO dry from the biPAP but I remember each time the nurse would disconnect the mask and try to fish the straw through the hole into my mouth I would start to gasp if it was taking too long wondering if I might pass out. I won’t soon forget that feeling of relief when the hose was reconnected and oxygen began to flow again.

As this was going on, I remembered an illustration that I previously used with students about the young Plato asking Socrates to teach him about knowledge, wisdom, and philosophy. As the story goes, Plato was begging Socrates to teach him but Socrates just kept walking until the pair stood chest-deep in a nearby lake. Suddenly Socrates turned and wrestled the ambitious student under the water holding him there for quite awhile. Plato burst out of the water gasping for air and asking Socrates what he was doing to which Socrates replied calmly, “Until you want knowledge & wisdom like you want more air to breathe, leave me alone.”

Lying there in that hospital bed, mask strapped to my face, I understood that illustration in a way I never had before. Not as a preacher with a good story to tell. I lived it.

And somewhere in those desperate, gasping moments a question surfaced that I couldn’t shake loose: What else am I that hungry for?

Because here’s what air hunger does that nothing else really can — it cuts through everything. Your body doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t get distracted or wonder if maybe it’s overreacting. When your lungs are screaming, the to-do list disappears. The minor grievances with your kids or coworkers disappear. The worries about next week just… go quiet. There is only right now and I need more air.

Thankfully, most of us will never end up on a biPAP machine. But I’d be willing to bet most of us know what it feels like to walk around with a different kind of hunger we’ve gotten really good at ignoring.

A spiritual hunger.

Augustine put it simply and beautifully: “Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.” He wasn’t writing a theology textbook. He was writing his own story. He was describing the air hunger of his soul before he finally stopped running and let himself breathe.

And here’s the thing — the hunger itself isn’t the problem. Honestly, I’ve come to see it as a gift. It means something in you is still reaching. Still alive. Still oriented toward something beyond what you can see and touch and manage on your own. The problem is when we spend years — sometimes decades — feeding that hunger everything except what it’s actually asking for.

We feed it performance and achievement. It says thanks but keeps asking. We feed it relationships and busyness and comfort and noise. We feast on approval, then on control, on whatever helps us feel less empty for a little while. Still hungry. Because the soul was made for something specific, and it knows the difference between the real thing and a substitute.

So where do you begin to actually address this deep spiritual hunger?

I think you start with honesty. Real honesty — not the kind you’d say out loud in a Sunday morning greeting. More like the kind you might whisper at 2am. I’m gasping. I’ve been gasping for a while. And I’ve been pretending that’s just normal life.

Then you reach. Clumsily, maybe. Through whatever prayer feels available to you right now, even if it’s mostly frustration and questions. Through Scripture — not as an item to check off but as actual oxygen, something your lungs genuinely need. Through community — the uncomfortable and surprisingly beautiful act of letting people around you see your hunger and realizing you’re not alone in it.

What I can tell you — from that hospital bed, from that mask, from all of this — is that the relief when the hose reconnects is real. There is nothing like the feeling of oxygen beginning to flow again. Pure, unfiltered gratitude. And I believe the soul has its own version of that moment.

Socrates had it right, I think. 

Until we want it like air, we won’t really go looking for it.

So I’ll just wrap up with a question I keep coming back to myself:

How hungry are we? 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6) describes a desperate, intense desire for God’s holiness and will, rather than just a casual interest. This spiritual hunger…this God hunger can only be satisfied as we trust Christ completely to fill us.”