In the Old Testament God punished His people in many ways—with wars lost, enslavement, pestilence, starvation, drought.
One creative punishment was silence.
“Hear this! The days are coming when I will send a famine though the land: not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.” Amos 8:11-12.
Imagine that. Israel had food and water and peace. But no one could hear from God.
No one could be sure he was making right choices. No one knew whether God was pleased with his decisions or whether every day he was storing up more wrath. Every prayer seemed to stop at the ceiling. Every moment of solitude felt like being abandoned—because no one felt God’s presence. Their souls were starving for a word from God.
But we feed our souls junk food. Picture this: my son is outdoors on an air mattress (no tent), miles from a city, surrounded by the stars, scorpions, and 10,000 bats. He is about to go to sleep on top of a rocky desert in the middle of nowhere, one of the most inhospitable wildernesses in North America. Not a sound can be heard but the wind and the wildlife … and he is looking at Tic Toc.
That is the world we live in—entertainment that never stops. You can watch anything, anytime, anywhere. There is so much available, you can’t sit through a movie without stopping to check your social media.
But your soul does not hunger for entertainment. You don’t need mental junk food. Your soul craves the Word of God. That is the bread and water of life. Without it, you are starving. Feed your soul the BREAD, the nourishment, that it craves. Read the Bible.
Otherwise, God may send “a famine of … hearing the words of the Lord.”
Dear Lord, remind us to feed on Your Word. Help us desire it, hunger for it, and make it a respected daily habit, as we do with meals of food.
ΑΩ
Household Words: 