AMOS 8:11-14 THE WORDLESS SILENCE

11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. 12 Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it. 13 “In that day “the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst. 14 They who swear by the shame of Samaria, or say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’—they will fall, never to rise again.”

During his wilderness experience, Jesus responded to Satan’s temptation to turn the stones into bread by saying, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). That quote came from the book of Deuteronomy where Moses was instructing Israel not to forget the Lord. As he presented the litany of what God had done for them, Moses said: He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (8:3). Their being humbled was their being put in the place of total dependence upon God in order to live. In short, they were humbled to live the way we were create to live.

We pride ourselves on our independence and how we have made our lives secure. We are well insured, have excellent health coverage, a fine pension program and a good job. In many cases even our spouses have decent salaries. Yet there is an emptiness at the center of our being. When we in solitude ask the meaningful questions of life, those question always seem to hang in the answerless silence. Our problem is that we have allowed our search for security to crowd out God.

Real living comes not from the things we possess or consume, but from the source of life – God. As he spoke creation into being, God speaks life into our lives. Jesus is the Bread of Life and unlike the loaf of bread in our pantry, we can never use him up, nor will he become stale and moldy.

Come into the silence of my soul O God and breathe your word into my lifeless thirst. Change the center of my life from me to Thee. Grow my faith so that I will depend on you and you alone. Feed me on your word so that I may be filled indeed. Amen.