Famine comes to everyone at sometime in their lives. If you live long enough, you will likely experience more than one season of this nature. The question is not, will I experience famine? The question is, what will you do when it comes, and what is God trying to accomplish IN YOU through the process?

Famine has many characteristics, and can be identified by understanding symptoms and signs: Lack of rain; supplies cut off; inability to produce or create life; inability to access God's provisions; Hunger and dissatisfaction; Emptiness; Dryness; Barrenness; etc. These are indicators that you may be in a season of famine.

There are four main causes of famine. They are: A change of climate or environment; Attack by an enemy which cuts off the supply lines; faulty infrastructure (or internal system problems); and lastly, The effects of a curse. When facing the symptoms of famine, it is important to seek God for understanding as to why you are experiencing these things. Personal examination is in order. Is this something I have brought on myself through disobedience? Is my life out of order, and what I am experiencing is simply the sum total of my own choices? Am I under some kind of attack? I believe that it is important to ask these kinds of questions, and to seek God's insight and wisdom in understanding the cause.

What I want to focus on in this article is that famine is a temporary condition, and is never intended or allowed by God to destroy you. Famine is a SEASON and not a SETTING. Many of us adopt a mindset during famine that is unhealthy and counter-productive to the very purpose of the season. We begin to concede that, "this is just the way things are going to be", or, "I must deserve this", or "that's just the way life goes". We begin to affirm the opposite of what God is trying to work in us. One of the most important things to do in seasons like this is to guard our tongue. We must hear what God has said concerning our lives, and speak only what He is speaking. We must set our faith in the direction of future productivity, prosperity, and blessing, rather than being down in the mouth and negative.

I am reminded of the story in I Kings 17, where Elijah had spoken a severe famine into existence by his word. Right in the middle of the famine, he encounters a widow gathering sticks, and asks her for some bread. Her confession was this. "I have no bread, only a handful of flour, and a little oil in the jar; and behold I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in a prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die." WOW! What an attitude. The famine had obviously affected this woman's belief system. She was resolved that she would have one last small meal, and then DIE!

You know the rest of the story. At the end of the day, this woman's supply of flour and oil was made inexhaustible. My point? If we can maintain the right attitude and confession during the time of famine, God is faithful to make us immune to the SPIRIT OF FAMINE. Even though famine is being experienced by those around you, it is your beliefs, your faith, and your attitude that determines whether or not you have to participate in it! If you're hungry right now, that's OK. Hunger is not a bad thing. What will kill you is giving up and quitting!

I challenge you today. Put on the mind of Christ. How does He see your present circumstance? Let your faith soar, and let your confession be that of blessing and confidence.

Better is the little of the righteous (correct thinkers) than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord sustains the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their inheritance will be forever. They will not be ashamed in the time of evil, and in the days of famine, they will have abundance.

Psalm 37:16-19