Recently, the news has been full of stories of parents who are becoming more and more frantic.

Why?

Because they can’t find baby formula. Some parents are driving around for hours, frantically and desperately looking for a store that has baby formula.

In general, it is best to breast feed newborns. But this is not feasible for all parents. Or for all newborns. Hence, baby formula is a necessity for many parents and newborns.

I can only remember one time when we almost ran out of formula for our baby, Sarah.

We were flying back north from Florida through Dulles. We unexpectedly sat in Dulles for a number of hours, waiting for our connecting flight.

We walked all through the gigantic terminal looking for baby formula. Nothing. They weren’t merely out of it. They simply didn’t stock it.

We could have bought reams of junk food. But no baby formula!

I didn’t want to leave the terminal in a rental car or taxi to go shopping. If I did, you could bet the connecting flight would show up before I got back.

Fortunately, our connecting flight showed up that evening. We didn’t have to spend the night in the terminal without baby formula.

The flight home took about an hour. At 30,000 feet, Sarah started screaming from hunger and thirst. We used our last bottle of baby formula to stop her screaming.

Based on our frantic desperation during this one time when we couldn’t find baby formula, I can only imagine the frantic desperation of parents who can’t find baby formula.

Their experience—and ours—illustrates how frantically and desperately we are supposed to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

As Jesus assured us in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6).

We should hunger and thirst for righteousness as frantically and as desperately as Sarah screamed with hunger and thirst for her bottle.

We should hunger and thirst for righteousness as frantically and as desperately as parents—including us—search for formula to feed their baby.

What kind of formula—what kind of righteousness—do we need to hunger and thirst for?

We need to hunger and thirst for the kind of righteousness that, as Jesus said, must be greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. (Matthew 5:20).

It is the kind of righteousness embodied by Jesus because his Way of living fulfills the ideals of the Law and of the Prophets. (Matthew 5:17).

In his Sermon on the Mount, the words of Jesus teach us the wisdom to put these ideals into practice in daily life.

Jesus promises that everyone who hears his words of wisdom and puts these ideals into practice:

is  a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. (Matthew 7:24-25).

In contrast, Jesus warns that everyone who hears his words of wisdom and does not put them into practice:

is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. (Matthew 7:26-27).

Immediately after his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus put his ideals into practice. He came down from the mountain, touched a leper, and healed him. (Matthew 8:1-3).

That is the kind of righteousness that we are to hunger and thirst for as frantically and as desperately as a hungry, thirsty baby screams for his or her bottle.

We are blessed if we hunger and thirst for this kind of righteousness that touches all kinds of “lepers” and heals all kinds of “leprosy”.

And Jesus promises that—if we hunger and thirst for this kind of righteousness—then we will be filled with this kind of righteousness.

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For more of my thoughts about the Sermon on the Mount, please read my blogs “Building Houses on Rock: Mission Impossible?”, “Building Houses on Rock: Mercy and Forgiveness”, “Building Houses on Rock: Securing Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, and “Building Houses on Sand: Specks and Planks”.