Ryan's Ramblings

[A brief word before you read: This reflection is not my usual weekly Nudging. It’s a quiet response to a recent public disclosure involving a well-known Christian voice—one that has stirred grief, questions, and reflection for many. I offer it not as commentary or conclusion, but as a quiet reflection—shared in humility and hope.]

The Final Word

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry.
—John 6:35, NIV

Most of us know the raven before we ever meet it in Scripture.

It comes to us through literature—black, inky, elegant, and eerie. Perched above a grieving man’s door, answering every question with a single word: Nevermore. In The Raven, the bird does not rage or argue. It simply echoes what sorrow already says.

The raven has come to symbolize finality—the quiet suspicion that loss, failure, or regret will have the last word. But long before Edgar Allan Poe gave the raven a voice of despair, Scripture had spoken.

After the flood, Noah sends out a raven. It does not return, moving back and forth over a world not yet made whole. In drought, ravens bring bread and meat to the mighty prophet Elijah—what once circled carrion was entrusted with holy provision. Solomon, sage and poet, dares to liken raven-black hair to beauty.

Scripture refuses to issue a single verdict on the raven.

It appears in places of death and in moments of provision. It lingers where endings are visible, and it arrives where sustenance is needed.

And then there is the creature itself.

Ravens are brilliant. Curious. Drawn to sparkle—foil, glass, coins, anything that catches the light. They explore. They gather. They fixate. Often associated with transition, sorrow, and death, they are also noted for fidelity and hope. They mate for life, giving their attention to one alone. A single eye. A fixed devotion.

Contradictions, held in contrast.

Which is why the story eventually turns toward us.

Because the truth is, we recognize something of ourselves here. We know what it is to be attentive and distracted at the same time. To desire faithfulness, yet feel the pull of lesser things. To be capable of devotion, and still drawn to what catches the light. To want depth, but settle for what is close at hand.

We are not just observers of the raven.

We are the raven.

Not evil.

But human—and hungry.

In other words, ravenous. At its root is the word raven. A raw, impatient appetite. Not always for sinful things—but for closeness, affirmation, intimacy, relief, meaning, and satisfaction. We are gifted. Intelligent. Capable of beauty and devotion. And still, drawn to what glitters. Still tempted to live on what sustains us just enough, rather than what restores us fully.

Scripture has a name for this kind of hunger.

“Watch out for the Esau syndrome,” Hebrews warns. “Trading away God’s lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite” (Heb. 12:16, MSG).

Esau wanted the blessing back later—but the moment had passed. Tears could not undo what hunger had already chosen.

Hunger rarely announces its cost in advance. This is the danger Scripture names—not hunger itself, but appetite left unattended. A loss we never meant to choose. A kind of Nevermore that arrives quietly, one small decision at a time.

Recently, a story surfaced that many of us wish we had not read. A story in the news and on social media that carries grief, not gossip. A failure measured not in moments, but in years—where wonder slowly gave way to wandering, and a covenant was broken. It unsettles us. Disillusions us. And reminds us—again—that spiritual language, wisdom, and calling do not cancel appetite.

It is tempting, in moments like these, to read critically—but from a safe distance. To imagine the story points outward at another, even as it quietly turns and points back at us. And it is there—without accusation—that Scripture speaks.

Scripture does not shame our hunger. It questions our substitutes.

“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?” (Isa. 55:2, NIV)

God asks—not to scold, but to invite. Sparkle is not bread.

Jesus never rebukes the hungry. He feeds them. “I am the bread of life,” He says—not a distraction, not a glittering substitute, but nourishment. What sustains. What satisfies. What is essential.

The raven survives on what it finds. Jesus offers us what we actually need.

And when the haunting voice of the raven whispers again—

that failure is final,

that hunger defines us,

that brokenness has the last word—

the gospel answers without spectacle or force:

Amazing grace.

God is our strength and our portion. He feeds the ravens, and He Himself is our food. He invites us to come—not to what sparkles, not to Nevermore, but to Jesus, the Bread of Life—bread enough for today.

Where grace—not hunger—gets the final word.