Chasing Demons and Eating Dirt

My parents used to chase demons.

They didn’t know that’s what they were doing. Back then, they called it ghost chasing. This was the 80s, before the internet and before it became a TV show.

Out in the rural South, silence filled the space, and fear filled the silence. So they chased what stirred both.

One day, they brought home a Ouija board they’d borrowed from a friend. They sent me and my siblings to our room while they “played” with it.

I guess a Ouija board is one way to deal with being bored.

The skies were clear. The air was still. But then the wind began to howl out of nowhere. It slammed against our trailer and rocked it like a storm was passing through.

Our phone rang.

It was the man they had borrowed the Ouija board from. He was panicking.

“Are you on the board right now?”

“Yes,” they said.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked.

They gave the name the “ghost” had introduced itself as.

His voice turned sharp. “GET OFF! He’s not one to play with!”

My parents slammed the board shut and threw it in their car. They never chased ghosts again.

Craving Eternal

Looking back, I see it clearly now.

They weren’t chasing ghosts. They were chasing a craving.

There was a spiritual hunger in their hearts. A longing for mystery. For meaning. For connection to something beyond.

But instead of running to God, they scratched a soul-deep itch with the wrong tools.

The Doctor Is Out

I used to drink only Dr. Pepper.

No water for me.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I only drank soda.

If the body is mostly water, I was mostly High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Eventually, I cut back to one a day and started drinking water. I noticed that the more water I drank, the less I craved soda.

And when I did try soda again, it tasted like syrup in the worst way.

The right diet will change your cravings.

When I started drinking water, I stopped craving soda.

The right diet doesn’t just change what you eat.

It changes what you want to eat.

Your appetite shifts with your intake.

When you start feeding on what you were made for, you stop craving what you weren’t.

Pregnant Cravings

Pregnant women sometimes crave the oddest combos. Pickles with peanut butter, or ice with hot sauce.

But there’s a medical condition called Pica, where people crave things like chalk or even dirt.

Research has discovered that they crave these things because their body is missing something essential like iron, zinc, or calcium.

And the things they are craving contains in it what they are missing.

So they are craving something unnatural to fix a real deficiency.

Cravings often point to something you need.

But if you don’t know the source of the craving, you’ll try to feed your soul with things that can’t nourish it.

Eat enough dirt and you’ll end up in it.

Eating Ants

My brother and I ate ants.

Not because we liked them but because we wanted to be liked.

Two girls in our neighborhood convinced us that they loved putting ants on goldfish crackers and eating them.

Yes, we fell for it.

There we were, eating ants on goldfish with a big stupid grin on our faces, talking about how good it tasted.

All the while they giggled.

We didn’t crave ants. We craved acceptance.

We just didn’t know how to meet the craving.

Feeding on the Wrong Things

Whether it’s demons, dirt or ants, the principle is the same: Cravings reveal what we’re missing.

When we chase validation, lust, or control-

We’re often trying to meet a spiritual hunger with spiritual junk food.

Daniel’s Example

Daniel lived in Babylon, surrounded by indulgence, temptation, and compromise.

When the king’s table offered food sacrificed to idols, Daniel refused. He chose what was pure and God honoring.

It wasn’t only about the food. It was about faith.

And God honored that decision not just with health, but with divine wisdom.

Daniel craved purity over his taste buds.

The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal craved freedom. Wealth. Pleasure. And he got it, for a moment.

But it left him broke and broken. Hungry and humiliated.

He started craving pig food.

But there was a feast at his Father’s house. His cravings drove him away.

But grace drew him back.

Taste and See

Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

But have we acquired a taste for the wrong things? We feast on distraction. Binge on approval.

Snacking on sin.

Then we wonder why we feel sick, empty, and numb.

Even in Eden, Adam and Eve craved something other than what God had given.

One bite and it all fell apart.

Fighting the Feed

Feeding your spirit isn’t passive. It’s intentional.

The flesh wants what’s fast, easy, and fake. But the Spirit invites us to something deeper. Not just empty spiritual calories.

Jesus declared that man shall not live on bread alone, when he was tempted by taste buds.

Daniel chose discipline. The Prodigal chose repentance. Both were fed by the Father.

Because what you feed on is what you become.

Jesus was the word made flesh. He stated that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. ”

He was what He consumed.

The Word.

Heart Transplant

To get a heart transplant requires a perfect match. The body will reject what’s not the right one.

Our souls reject anything less than the eternal, because they were made for it.

The eternity set in our hearts can only accept eternal things.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has set eternity in the human heart.”

That means no temporary thing will ever be enough. You can’t fill an eternal void with earthly junk.

That craving you feel?

It’s for Him.

Only Jesus satisfies.

Finding Your Way Back

Ever since Eden, we’ve been trying to find our way back. Back to the Garden. Back to wholeness. Back to God.

So the next time you find yourself chasing something dysfunctional or craving something sinful be reminded:

You’re not searching for more , you’re searching for meaning,

You’re not craving distraction, you’re trying to fill a deficiency,

You’re not wanting to binge, you’re aching to belong,

You’re not looking to escape reality, you’re longing for the eternal,

It’s not a need for a high, You are hungry for home.

You have just been using the wrong map.

You’ve just been eating dirt and ants, when you are meant for something sacred.

Crave Creator, Not Crumbs

So when you feel a craving rise up—pause.

Ask yourself: “What is this really about?”

Is it hunger or hurt? Is it pleasure or pain?

Then take it to God.

Before you scroll, snack, spend, or spiral,

Pray.

Even if it’s one sentence: “Lord, show me what I really need.”

And then choose to feed on what actually fills:

His presence.

His Word.

His truth.

His love.

You will find that the more you consume the things of God, the more you will crave them.

When you feed on what’s sacred, you lose your taste for the sinful.

God has been craving to be with you more than you can imagine.

In that knowledge you will discover what you actually have been looking for the entire time,

Home.

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