Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish
- Larry Kutzler
- Apr 23
- 3 min read
Steve Jobs once gave a speech where he talked about how the mishaps in his life were some of the best teaching tools for his direction in life. He concluded his speech by saying, “stay hungry and stay foolish.”
I think Jobs was on to something. Hunger is a great motivator to achieve dreams and goals you otherwise may never attempt to achieve. I think the greatest way you can fail in life is by giving up on yourself, your dreams, or your aspirations. Be the best at what you do! So many people give up on too early in life and lose the hunger for a more fulfilled life. Jesus told us to always stay hungry.
Matthew 6:33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
‘Seeking’ is the staying hungry for God. Staying satisfied with what you know about God is living beneath what God would want for your life. Many Christians, who have been in the Church for some time, get comfortable with what they know about God. They have read the entire Bible several times, and they have been to Church thousands of times in their lifetime. This, of course, is a good thing, yet it’s a bad thing if all it has done for you at the end of the day, is make you complacent in what you already know. God doesn’t want us to stay stagnant in our understanding of Him … there is always more to learn and more to know about this God we serve. Staying hungry means we pursue God … just Him and only Him. Christians love to read, go to conferences, and listen to their favorite preacher. All are good practices, but that is still not enough. God does not want a relationship with us via a primary mediator who tells us about Him. Relationships with teachers, preachers, and media communicators are all great aspects of inspiration, yet it is not enough. Reading books about God can inspire you, instruct you, and help you redirect your life, yet it is not enough.
Staying hungry for God is a state of mind and heart that will not let others be the only source of your relationship with God. Staying hungry means you set the course of your life to know God again and again and again. From the time you rise in the morning to the time you go to bed at night, always thinking about how God will show up in your day, is a great way to live out the expectancy of knowing God and being ready for His return.
The second part of staying hungry is staying foolish. Now, that doesn’t mean you become as a fool, it simply means you are willing to trust God at all costs. The great stories in the Bible are about people who did not give up on knowing God was in control. Some in the world would call that foolish, trusting in someone or something that you cannot touch, taste, or see. Steve Jobs saw this as an opportunity to live in a dimension that brought his wildest ideas into reality. For the Christian. it is our trust in God that brings us the assurance we are not alone in living our lives. That assurance that God is with us helps us to realize that with God, nothing is impossible. I have to constantly remind myself that God is the God of the impossible, not just the possible. If all we know about God is that He is love, and that He forgives us, we fail to realize that He lives in the realm of the impossible. That might seem to be irrelevant and foolish to some, but in times when you face the impossible aspects of life you need to know that God is equipped to handle it.
To me, I often have things in my life that are in the realm of the impossible, so I need a God who lives in that realm.
So, staying hungry and foolish is a great message for all of us.
Challenging the Culture with Truth … Larry Kutzler