"Open Your Eyes to the Famine" - ‎01/16/13 - Genesis 42:1-45:15

famine (ˈfæmɪn)
— n
1.	a severe shortage of food, as through crop failure or overpopulation
2.	acute shortage of anything
3.	violent hunger "God was behind it. God sent me here ahead of you to save lives. There has been a famine in the land now for two years; the famine will continue" (45:5) Why?  Probably the most asked question of God.  During times that things don't make sense, when your heart is breaking over a situation you know He could have prevented, when the cards of life are stacked against you. Going all the way back to the Garden of Eden - wondering why He created a tree that had a beautiful fruit, that couldn't be eaten from.  Throughout the years, so many things don't make sense, don't seem to be of love, that even at times - He isn't in control.  And we begin to ask, "Why?".  One of the facts about not knowing all the "why's" is that we are not on His level.  Bottom line is - We. are. not. God.  Only He can see the whole paradigm.  Know all the in's and out's of a situation.  And only He is in complete control.  It comes out when Joseph encounters his brothers, he couldn't hold his emotions in any longer.  The accounts of his weeping show us how much he missed his family, his home he grew up in.  The names of his sons are proof of this.  Their names are also proof that he accepted where God had placed him.  God blessed His faith by allowing him to see the "why".  One of the many things I love about Joseph is his acceptance of God's "why's".  He looked upon his life as a mission from God - to go ahead of them, to save them from the famine.  He wasn't caught up in the wallowing of self-pity.  He was looking at the ways to serve - no matter the situation God had him in.  Do I? Or am I more caught up in the "why's"?  Am I in the middle of my self-pity party?  In some cases - yes.  Not as often as I used to be - thankfully He has grown me.  satan knows that next to God, I hold nothing more dear to me than my family.  I am so blessed that God has enabled me to see satan working and I no longer take things personal that happen.  God is helping me through this by allowing me to see the "golden nuggets" that are falling down upon me, to see that it is a blessing and honor our family is being attacked.  If it were not, then I should be very worried. What He is enabling me to do is open my eyes to the famine.  1. a severe shortage of food, as through crop failure or overpopulation 2. acute shortage of anything 3. violent hunger Look at this definition in a spiritual sense.  The "food" is His Word- the crop failure is the failing of us - His family - feeding.  There is an overpopulation of the unsaved.  There is an acute shortage of Him being the foundation, the center, the essence, of too many people.  One unsaved person is too many.  And there is a violent hunger in this world.  This hunger for Him is what is destroying our world.  People who are violently hungry will do anything to be feed with what they think will fill the void in their souls.  Those that do not know Him are turning to evil for food.  And their fruits are rotten - they have the stench of death.  We see satan everywhere in the world, among the lost, the starving, feeding on them.   Jesus didn't tell us that we are to live our life to figure out the "why's" of God,  although there are "why" questions we do need to ask ourselves. "Why do we so often stand by and let satan feed". "Why do I not do as He instructed, "save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh." (Jude1:23) We are to live our life for Him - no matter the situation - as Joseph did.  We are to see Him in control of all - even when it doesn't make sense - as Joseph did.  We are to have faith in Him that we are blessed - even when our hearts are ripped out - as Joseph did.  As Joseph was sent out ahead to save his people from the famine, we also have been sent out ahead, to save the people around us that are lost in the famine of not knowing Him. "Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)