What comes to mind when you hear the word "famine"? Do you think of a dry desert town in the middle of central Africa? Hundreds of thousands dying in filth in villages? Or maybe you think of a child living in poverty without enough to eat. Is what you think of dry? Desolate? Depressing? Far away? Chances are that, like me, you have never been a part of that kind of famine. But that does not mean our lives do not have famines. Let's take a few minutes to expand our understanding of how we define the word "famine." Certainly ...
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What comes to mind when you hear the word "famine"? Do you think of a dry desert town in the middle of central Africa? Hundreds of thousands dying in filth in villages? Or maybe you think of a child living in poverty without enough to eat. Is what you think of dry? Desolate? Depressing? Far away? Chances are that, like me, you have never been a part of that kind of famine. But that does not mean our lives do not have famines. Let's take a few minutes to expand our understanding of how we define the word "famine." Certainly it includes the dry town and the hungry child, but famine is much more than that. What if we thought of it as anything we were created to need but do not have? With that definition in mind, the possibilities of famine can include the physical kind we mentioned. But it could also include emotional, relational, and spiritual famines. It is not a lack of something we merely want, like a newer car, a bigger house, or a different reflection in the mirror. A famine is when we have a deficit, a space between what we really need and what we have. That space can be huge. Here can be a widening gap between what our body, mind, and heart are crying out for and the reality of what our life actually contains. That famine, deficit, or gap can last for a period of time, a season. But some famines might just last for the rest of our lives. We may never have what we were created to need, and the realization of that can drive us to the end of ourselves and keep us in a place of helplessness and total dependence. And that is exactly where want to begin. Death, divorce, disease, disability. Any one of these can throw your heart right into the middle of a famine. Recapture is the story of one woman and her family who not only survive but thrive in the midst of famine. Through their faith in God, they are able to pull hope, peace, and joy from the dry, dark depths of their needs.
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