When Famine Strikes - Martin Wiles

At last the seven years of bumper crops throughout the land of Egypt came to an end. Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. Genesis 41:53-54 NLT

His famine entailed languishing in a WWII concentration camp.

Someone discovered the poem the Jewish prisoner wrote on the wall of a cellar in the Cologne concentration camp. It began as follows:

“I believe in the sun

even when it is not shining

And I believe in love,

even when there’s no one there.

And I believe in God,

even when he is silent.”

Famines are caused by several things other than a simple shortage of food: war, inflation, crop failure, government policies, and population imbalance. Famines also lead to a few complications: malnutrition, starvation, epidemics, population displacement, water shortage, and, of course, death.

Joseph knew about a famine because God told him it was becoming. As second in command in Egypt, he prepared the country for its coming by storing crops during the seven years of plenty that preceded the seven years of famine.

But another type of famine exists that has nothing to do with food shortage. As the Jewish prisoner experienced, it’s the famine of God’s hiddenness, silence, and seemingly unfairness. If we’re honest with ourselves, all of us have experienced times when God didn’t appear to care—and didn’t even seem to be around. Our prayers seemed stagnant. His Word lost its appeal. Our world crumbled, and God didn’t intervene—or so we thought.

As God provided for the people of Egypt because of Joseph’s preparation, so He provides for us in our times of famine. He hasn’t left us, although we may feel He has. Feelings are just that—feelings. They don’t mimic reality. Jesus said He would never leave or forsake His children, and He doesn’t.

During famines, our duty is to trust God. When we don’t know the next step to take, we keep going in the same direction with the faith that the last step He directed us to take was the correct one.

Satan wants to use the famine to drive us away from God. God desires to use it to draw us closer to Him, to mature our faith, and to prepare us for other opportunities ahead.

Don’t waste your famines. God has better things ahead.

Tell us about one of your famines. 

Prayer: Father, we trust You to care for us and to direct us through our periods of famine.

Tweetable: Is God taking you through a famine? 

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When Famine Strikes - Martin Wiles

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. Genesis 12:10 NLT

One million people died, and another million left the country.

History records it as the Irish Potato Famine, and it occurred between the years of 1845 and 1849. Since two fifths of the population depended on this crop for various reasons, the famine led to mass starvation and disease. When it had run its course, twenty to twenty-five percent of the island’s population disappeared.

Thousands of years before the Irish Potato Famine, another famine struck the land of Canaan, the land that God had called Abram to leave his homeland for … the land where God promised to make him great by giving him numerous descendants.

But when the famine struck, Abram ran to Egypt. That’s when the trouble started. Abram’s wife, Sarai, was beautiful. Abram knew the king of the land would see her, kill him, and then take Sarai as his wife. So Abram devised a plan … a half-truth. He told Sarai to tell the king she was his sister.

Sure enough, the king took her as his wife. But God wasn’t pleased. And neither was the king when he discovered he had taken a married woman. He released her and told Abram to leave his land. Famines—whether physical or spiritual—lead us to do unnatural things.

Our personal famines show up in what the Bible refers to as a sin nature. Our souls experience a dearth because we are not rightly related to our Creator. Sin separates us from Him. We long for God as those in famine lands long for food and water.

Yet, instead of eating of the Bread of Life and drinking from the Living Water as Jesus invites us to, we often turn to other things, thinking they will satisfy our hunger and thirst. They won’t, and they leave us hungrier and thirstier than we were before.

What the Irish people needed was something to replace the potato—or something to kill what was killing the potatoes. What Abram needed was to trust God and stay in the land God told him to go to. 

What we need when the famines of our souls come is to turn to God. He alone has what we need. He alone can give us wisdom for our situations. Whatever the famine has stolen, He can restore.

When famine strikes your life, go to the One who can provide for your need.

Prayer: Father, we thank You that no famine is so great that You cannot sustain us in these times of drought.

Tweetable: Has famine struck you? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.