Fast or Famine?

Published by christi on February 17, 2024

Blessed are those  who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied. 

— Matthew 5:6

God uses famine to satisfy His people.

We know so little of famine in our country. Droughts that cause crop failure are limited in their  effect because our transportation system is so vast and fast that if we can’t get wheat from Kansas, we can get it from Montana, or Argentina, or Ukraine (before the war).We have largely engineered our way out of having to deal with the localized/regional effects of drought and famine. We just send a little farther and pay a little more. No big deal.

Someplace like sub-Saharan Africa, where if they don’t grow it they don’t eat it, and most everyone goes on foot or by bicycle…when there is drought, there’s famine. Nothing to eat means nothing to eat.  People migrate – leave their homes to find food; they search and follow every rumor that might lead to food. The desire and search for food fill their minds, waking and sleeping. Desperation for the empty to be filled consumes them.

The patriarchs moved their families around to satisfy their hunger – or at least they sent envoys. For example, the threat of famine caused Pharaoh to turn the entire kingdom of Egypt over to Joseph the slave.

Famine makes people move, migrate, mourn and die.

Famine and fasting are connected by one symptom:  hunger.

Fasting embraces death and mourning one meal at a time; it migrates us closer to God.

Both are intended by God to draw our hearts to Him. The one God brings to us, the other we bring to Him as an offering. Jesus’ words about hunger do not specify HOW we get there — just that we are blessed when we hunger for the goodness only God can provide…that is only found in Him, “The LORD our righteousness!”

Think of fasting as an RSVP to an invitation, a kind of commitment to “save the date.” It is not the wedding feast, but an investment in getting ready for it. Unless we sense our lack, our need, we never come to Him with that need.

Only the thirsty seek water. Only the hungry crave bread.

Fasting will create hunger. Hunger for the LORD our righteousness will be satisfied.

Let me know what you will do to create hunger for the One who is worth

Following [Jesus] every day in the everyday,

Christi