God’s protection on us is one of the many reasons we’re thankful this year. This year has been unlike any other, but we have rallied and accomplished so much.

Share this with a friend who wasted no time changing into their Thanksgiving (stretchy) pants🙂

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Thinking about famine on a day of feasting.

It sounds weird, but stay with us. A lot of famines in the Bible took place in Canaan. Each famine created social disrupt and loss, but in each place was God’s favor, blessing, and increase. He withdrew His provision usually when people turned from Him or hardened their hearts in order to allow them to turn back to their first love. I imagine there is nothing like being physically hungry that will drive you to your knees to call out on God or not being able to provide for your family that will bring you back to dependency on the Lord.

They were times of great crisis, but famines were also times of great opportunity for God’s people to return to Him with humility and dependence.

Famines positioned Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph for influence, setting them up generationally, and it opened the door for miracles. God can use conditions like a famine to position us as His people not only for this season, but for what’s to come.

Conditions only become opportunities if we learn how to respond in the midst of them.

If we learned anything this year, we learned we are under a ministry that is on the wall watching and protecting God’s people. We saw how quickly they came together to ensure we were fed. The reason we know how to respond in the midst of a famine (or conditions that leave us facing some type of scarcity)?

We have the Holy Ghost working inside us and the answers written down. Look through your notes from the past few years . . . that’s how we know how to respond. We lean on the teachings and encourage ourselves.

A famine can be symbolic in our lives as well.

Maybe you’re facing some sort of shortage in your life, jobs, marriages, or families. Maybe your soul is dry and you’re not connecting with God in this season, and you are wondering where He is in this time of your life. As we walk on this journey, we encounter many types of famines. I learned if you go back and read through some of them in the Bible, you will discover an answer to a condition you are currently in. Each one offers lessons unique to that moment and other lessons that are common to conditions we find ourselves in.

God taught our church something about flourishing during a condition this past year.

We did not have to live in survival mode, but we lived dependent on Him and continued to thrive in the midst of the condition.

It might sound strange to be reading about famines during a holiday of feasting, but this past year brought us to a place of being grateful beyond all of our years and to a place of reflection. I haven’t read about all the famines yet, but the latest one is during Isaac’s time. Isaac lives in the shadow of a very famous father (Abraham) and a very famous son (Jacob). If you read about him, you’ll notice his story doesn’t get as many chapters, but it packs a powerful lesson.

The famine tested Isaac in resilience, humility, trust, and faithfulness. When it struck, he ran to rely on false sources for true strength.

Where do we run when famine strikes us?

Brother Nobles preaches to lock ourselves in the Holy Ghost and our revelation. Even when we find ourselves in a foreign land, God lets us know that we belong to Him. We don’t have to rely on the world’s resources.

He didn’t bring us this far to abandon us.

He let Isaac know, as He lets us know, you aren’t like the rest of the people in your community, city, or company that you work for — you are set apart. You are a child of God. He let us know this year, in the midst of a pandemic, He put His favor upon us and He has not forgotten us.

Don’t compromise your spiritual integrity during conditions.

Isaac does, but recovers it, and God continues to bless him. The Lord has given us what we need to overcome our carnal nature and escape the corruption of the world. We have the ability to not only thrive through the condition, but to also come out better positioned for the next season.

Regardless of the famine we are facing, it will test every single thing in our lives and reveal what we really believe.

Brother Nobles just talked about faith and it’s dual usage. A faith that can’t be tested, can’t be trusted (applies to both kinds). When your faith is tested, you come to develop a track record over time so that when we enter into a crisis, we don’t freak out because we know that same faith and teachings that got us through the last trial, will be sufficient to get us through the next one.

Knowing every time the Lord has been there and helped us get through a condition — becomes a sign that we don’t have to panic in the midst of the crisis.

Every time Isaac dug another well, God blessed him. How many times has God blessed us for what we made happen for others? When one succeeds around a blessed person, others around that person succeed. Isaac didn’t seek revenge on the king, but threw a feast and swore an oath with him. Isaac knew the source of his strength and blessing. He knew he would never come in second by putting God first.

This Thanksgiving, we have so much to thank Him for. Most important, He protected us, and we flourished during a famine.

On days like this one, we miss Elder LaFleur, but we know we are going on because of the words of truth that he labored to plant inside our hearts and because he raised up a ministry that now carries the torch to lead us through whatever lies ahead.