May 23

Day 70: Need to Eat

I have one job today: mow the lawns before the rain comes. Might be good if I ate first.

It's still too early to mow. 10am seems to be the acceptable start time in our neighborhood. So I finished up the book of Amos earlier today. Seemed like the usual prophecy sequence, which goes something like this:

1) Here's the indictment against you.

2) Here's what's coming, what your judgment and punishment will look like.

3) Here's some hope, so you'll see God is not done and will not postpone His purposes forever (even for Old Testament people, there was hope in the gospel).

But, while cruising through chapter 8, verses 11 and 12 stopped in my tracks.

"Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land - not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD."

Meaning, God would completely stop communicating with them. He was finally done with speaking to an audience that didn't want to listen. They were sentenced to go into exile.

And He wasn't going with them.

"They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word or the LORD, but they shall not find it."

Even after they came to their senses, even after they decided they wanted to hear and obey what He had to say if that would lead to their rescue, He still wouldn't be saying a word.

This is not intermittent fasting (by choice). This is abject starvation (by decree). This is frantically looking all over town for food, with nothing in the cupboards or fridge. Nothing at IGA or Costco. Nothing at Safeway or Fred's.

By God's grace, their plight is not ours. God speaks. He speaks through the Scriptures. He speaks through the Holy Spirit who illumines the Scriptures for us.

His word is there for us. Sustenance awaits.

But maybe it's left only to the one who knows he or she wakes up each day starving. And needs to eat.

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church| Juneau