Are You Healthy? A Bishop's Test: Do You Hunger for God?
What the video says
The speaker uses the analogy of physical health and appetite to describe spiritual health. Just as a sick person has no appetite, a person who feels no hunger and thirst for God is spiritually ill. He explains that true health means longing for Christ, the bread of life, and for the grace of the Holy Spirit, and that God gives to those who truly thirst.
One may avoid obvious sins—being a thief, a fraudster, or immoral—yet still lack any desire for the spiritual life. If the soul does not move within you with hunger and thirst for God, and the fact of God does not interest you, then something is wrong.
Key moments
- A sick person has no appetite; likewise, lacking desire for God is a sign of spiritual illness.
- True health is hungering and thirsting for Christ, the bread of life, and for the grace of the Holy Spirit.
- God gives to the one who truly thirsts; without thirst, the spiritual life becomes very difficult.
- One may not commit obvious sins—robbery, fraud, immorality—yet still have no appetite for the spiritual life.
- If your soul does not move with hunger and thirst for God, something is going wrong.
Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol offers a brief but searching teaching on what true spiritual health means, using the analogy of physical illness and appetite. Just as a sick person loses the desire to eat and drink, a person who feels no hunger or thirst for God is, spiritually speaking, unwell—even if outwardly respectable. True health, he says, is thirsting for Christ, the bread of life, and hungering for the grace of the Holy Spirit; and God gives Himself to the one who truly thirsts.
The bishop is careful to note that a person may avoid every obvious sin—robbery, fraud, immorality—and still lack any appetite for the spiritual life. The absence of wrongdoing is not the same as the presence of longing. If the soul does not move within you with hunger and thirst for God, and the reality of God does not interest you, then something is going wrong, something is not well.
Without that inner thirst, he adds, the spiritual life becomes very difficult, for God responds to those who genuinely seek Him. The post is a short quotation from the bishop's preaching, shared with hashtags linking it to Orthodox faith and his own diocese. There is no discussion thread attached; the card reflects the text and its message alone.
The teaching is a gentle diagnostic rather than a condemnation: it invites readers to examine not their moral record but their desires—to ask whether they want God at all, and if not, to recognize that this indifference is itself the illness that needs healing through prayer, repentance, and grace.
Main points
- Physical health is illustrated by appetite; a sick person has no desire to eat or drink.
- Spiritual health is hungering and thirsting for Christ, the bread of life, and the grace of the Holy Spirit.
- God gives Himself to the one who truly thirsts; without thirst the spiritual life is very difficult.
- Avoiding obvious sins is not enough—one may still have no appetite for the spiritual life.
- If the soul does not hunger for God, something is wrong; that indifference is the illness to be healed.