There was a time when I was laid off. While later I found a new job, I had to take a 50% pay cut. My finances were almost hand-to-mouth, without much room for savings.

Many of us go through such times of tightness and inflexibility. We feel trapped and constrained, then frustrated, depressed or angry.

I call this period the hungry years.

If we are not careful, we would feel that God is holding out on us. “I thought He is a good God. Then why is He giving us a raw deal? Perhaps He is not as loving as He is said to be.”

I was accusing God of being stingy, like a billionaire who hands me a bowl of bland porridge when he could have treated me to a sumptuous buffet.

But one day I came across a line that changed my thinking. Moses told this to the people of Israel after wandering through the desert for forty years: “[God] humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna…” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

Wait a minute. God causing you to hunger?

I thought that when God blesses us, we are filled, happy or even carefree.

But the more I thought about this sentence, the more I realized that God’s blessings does not always mean that He makes us comfortable.

Put differently, suffering does not necessarily mean that one has lost God’s favor. In fact, there are blessings that God can only give us through hunger. We have to accept that God uses both the pleasant and the unpleasant, the famine as well as the feast, in a divinely ordained blend.

In what way can going through “hungry years” – times when our finances are tight and we wonder if we will ever prosper – serve to our benefit?

First, hungry years teach us to be disciplined and to prioritize.

When I had a hefty salary, I would give little thought of buying this or that. But with a tight budget, I had to focus on paying the essentials and let go of my private luxuries.

I was learning (but not always successful!) the virtue of delayed gratification. In some cases, when I put off buying something, in due time I wondered why I ever hankered for that item in the first place.

More importantly, when God restored my former salary level, I resolved to continue with my thrifty lifestyle and pour the surplus cash into savings or investments.

I will share the other two insights next week. Meantime, are you hungry for something deeper? Some love and acceptance? Some purpose in life?

Listen to Jesus’s invitation: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry…” (John 6:35). Come to Jesus. Entrust yourself to Him. Make Him Lord and Savior of your life. He will fill the innermost hunger in your heart.

He has never made a promise He can’t keep.