Finding Food
It has been a very long and hot summer here in my part of the country. Many animals have suffered this season due to the lack of precipitation over the past year. Yet God has blessed us with enough rain to allow the animals and our gardens survive a while longer. The question that looms over our head is what kind of fall and winter are we going to endure and how much moisture will we receive over this time period. The seasons likely will not change much but I cannot help but wonder how conditions will be if God does not provide. It becomes imperative that we work hard and be diligent with our means of food for our bodies but how many times have we not included our spiritual needs for food as well? Many of us have ignored the provisions that God has provided and it is our responsibility to partake in our food’s sources as well. For if we do not include both the spiritual and physical aspects of our lives become weak and subject to attack by our enemy.
I was on one of my many excursions across the parking lot in between the hospital buildings a few days ago and I noticed a bird that had landed close by me and began to walk across the asphalt. All of us have heard the old adage that the early bird gets the worm and seeing something hanging from this bird’s mouth as it crossed my path brought that saying to my mind.
The bird was just walking as fast as he could to get across the drive with his head held high as if to say look at me and what I have in my mouth. It was obvious that the bird was proud of his accomplishments with his catch. With a passing of a few seconds the bird then approached the curb in which he quickly jumped onto the sidewalk and continued his journey towards the nearest bush. He then promptly went underneath the bush and disappeared from sight.
This event sparked my curiosity so I slowly changed my course and began to slowly walk towards the bush where the bird had entered. I stopped shy of the bush and knelt down to take a peek to see if I could see the bird. He was in the process of gulping down the worm when he noticed me looking at him but he continued his feeding frenzy like I was not there. I saw what I wanted to see so I did not stick around any longer. I slowly stood back up and continued my walk to the other building and at the same time God decided to speak to me about food and how He does care for the animals of this planet and how His caring for our food is just as important.
We have always taken the verse that God provides for the sparrow and how we can have the assurance that God will supply our needs as well. It is very difficult for us to sit back and read about kids going to sleep hungry or people lining up in food lines to receive a single bowl of soup for their dinner. These scenes have been watched and read about in foreign countries but it really does not hit home until you drive by a food bank and witness the line waiting for the doors to open for business. These people have numerous reasons for being in these lines and each one of them could tell you a story for why they are there, but when you stop and think about it some charitable organization or church organization or some other manner those food banks are being supplied by humans.
Now, that means that someone or some company had to take the time to plant the seeds needed to grow those products, no matter what products they were. Then those same people had to put forth the effort to nurture those crops and to supply the necessary nutrients for them so that they would grow into mature plants. Then at some point those plants had to be harvested and then transported to the processing plant so that they could be placed into storage containers. The final step is to ship that product to the designated stores or facilities that will then place into the public’s hands. Why am I mentioning this process….I am glad you asked J
I give my parents grief sometimes about how “bad” I had it when I was growing up. I tease them with some of my ideas of “how it was” and just how hard I had it when I was living at home. In truth they were the best things that have happened to my growing up years and saw me through many trials and tribulations along my journey. Mom and dad never made me sit down at the table and stare at my food until I ate every bite that was on my plate, but they did not allow me to waste food either. My parents did tell me stories of how life was to them while growing up and how different it was from their generation to mine. They did this not to make me feel bad or to see them in any different light but they did it so that I would learn that even though I had food on the table, someone had to work to produce that food and that I should be grateful for the things that I had to eat.
During their talks with me about food I really never understood not having food until I made my trip to Haiti with my father. It was on this trip that I learned a lot about food and a lot about other things in life that we in western society take for granted on an hourly basis. Referring back to the bird story at the beginning of my message, in Haiti I noticed that there were no birds at all. I saw people going about with their daily activities and you could tell that they put a lot of time into their work, but these people starved each day and struggled to supply their food needs only once a day not even to dream about having two or three meals. So, where were the birds that God promised to feed? Even when there are no “birds” in the area we still can have the confidence that God still provides food for His people but that does not mean that times are always easy for us.
We as humans have been given the ability to produce the means necessary to provide for our families. It is our responsibility to complete this task to the best of our abilities on a daily basis. God watches our stewardship towards food and how we approach its concepts. Not all of us really appreciate food and its necessity in our lives. Yes we enjoy the benefits of food but for the majority of us in western society it would be beneath us to go out and grow the food we eat. It would also be beneath us to work in another area other than our expertise to provide for the food that we need. How much food do we waste on a daily basis? The amounts would blow your mind and yet we refuse to find a way to provide for our world more efficiently.
How long will it be until God begins to abandon our blessings of food? I do not believe it will be too much longer since we as humans have now reverted to boycotting food based upon personal beliefs. Which this action really reflects upon how we are wanting our spiritual bread baskets filled and it really does not surprise me but at the same time it does make me wonder how much longer before God says “Enough!” and allows us to experience true hunger on both levels. Yes, the two levels are tied together and many of us have failed to recognize this concept; stop and think about it for a bit if our enemy attacks our spirit it must be weak in some area and this is evident in a person who is spiritually unfed and weak in response to the enemy, and in some cases to weak or unaware to even fight back. So, if the spirit is weak then the next logical area would be the physical aspect and if the attack on the spiritual food works, why change tactics?
There are many places in the world today that the spiritual food supply is far greater than their physical food supply. My parents have been in many countries throughout the world and when they return this is a common theme that they share with those who listen to their words, the spiritual aspects of a person’s life far outweigh their physical. These people have far more abundance of spiritual food in their lives than I have ever known simply because they have trust in God and live accordingly. And you know something, even though these people do not have hardly a dime to their name they are the happiest people that I have ever met. There is a reason for this and it is because they know what surrounds them and they know that they are under constant attack but they also know that their daily spiritual food supply is never going to run out since they seek that source on a continual basis.
Now, let me talk about the opposite side of the spectrum for a moment. We in western society have been blessed with an abundance of food for quite some time. Yes, there was a time that the food supply in this society was not as plentiful as it is today but this was supplemented by the spiritual blessings that God allowed us to survive and it was by God’s grace that our type of society was allowed to stay afloat during this time. Yes, it was a difficult time but we as a society still looked towards God for guidance. So, what is the difference today? The difference is our attitudes towards God and our spiritual food and the direct conflict that we have with God. If you have paid attention to the past few decades our society has been steadily sinking in its morality and its values. We have been systematically walking away from God and living our own lives the way we saw fit. Now, God understands this and He understands that we are self sufficient and that is what He wants for our lives but at the same time He does not wish that we ignore the source of our supplies which is Him.
Also, if you have been paying attention to the weather over the past few decades you will have noticed that the patterns of weather have changed dramatically during this time period. The weather has not been as faithful for the crops and to the land which means it is more difficult for farmers to bring in their harvests and when they have been allowed to complete the harvest, it has been diminished greatly. So the next logical step would be for the government to put in its two cents…oh wait, they have already done this. So where does this leave us? Back to the point where we need to search for sound guidance about food, which we are now looking towards the government for our direction and we are receiving nothing in return. This lack of action will produce a situation in which one day we will wake up and realize that the food supply is no longer at the levels that we have become accustomed to. So, who then will we turn to supply our daily bread and who will actually be interested in the sparrow?
It is very important for us to realize that our spiritual lives and spiritual food intake is just as important as our physical intake of food and it is just as important to understand that the two food intake pathways are equal in our lives. We have made a turn and it time that we open our eyes and ears and to hear what God is saying to us concerning our spiritual lives. He is warning us about our land, our spiritual land which feeds us. This land is fed by God and His Word and it is our responsibility to cultivate this land within our spirits and to grow and to harvest His Word into our lives so that we may live abundantly when times get tough. Our physical world will change and the things of our physical world will be different but our spiritual food must never dwindle by any measure for in times of difficulty our spiritual food will sustain us to make sound decisions on the physical aspects of life.
In short, cultivate our spiritual land and it shall provide the nourishment to sustain us when times get tough. Continue our path away from this spiritual cultivation and we shall see many deprivations within our lives and we will become a devastated land, both in the spiritual side and in the physical side. God is giving us another chance to choose Him and we really should make the decision to grasp onto this chance.
DLB
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