As I sit behind two sisters’ high-pitched voices fighting over a purse that doesn’t belong to either one of them, I can’t help but flash back to similar petty arguments my brothers and I had when we were young. Angry words would spit back and forth even over the tiniest of things. The blue cup. The remote control. The first piece of gum. The last piece of gum. Now being older, when sisters act like this, I roll my eyes and smirk at the silliness. Then, sometimes, I get a not-so-subtle reminder that maybe the past isn’t really in the past after all. Fast forward. March 19, 2020. Code red on the toilet paper aisle. Walmart. There wasn’t a mess to clean up. Just globs of grown women losing their minds over the last package of toilet paper. It looked like the package was about to rip open like an exploding bag of cake mix. I imagined toilet paper rolls flying everywhere, while a few feisty fighters frantically stuffed rolls into their arms and sprinted like running backs toward the front of the store. Well, unfortunately, it didn’t play out exactly as I had imagined, but arguing and abusive language definitely ensued. As it turned out, Walmart wasn’t the only place to catch the show. Women in various stores all over the country played out this scene. They were all over the internet cussing, yelling, and even throwing punches. Many people were left empty handed while others walked out past confused store workers with a cart full. And the question so many (really, so many) people have is…where can I find more toilet paper? Well, that too. But the real question is…why? Why does one setback push so many over the edge?
When the aisle finally cleared, I began to push my cart through it slowly trying to take in this new world I would be forced to become acquainted with. The silence became deafening as it echoed through the thick steel shelves. Small yellow price tags stared back at me. These numbers I analyzed so deeply before now quickly faded into insignificant memories. Sorrow began to well up at the realization: it was too late. Loss was imminent. My mind flashed with images of ill-equipped test centers, overwhelmed medics, and scared ill patients. The lack of preparation during the calm had come out in the storm. Shelves were left to display only shadows of what’s to come, but the emptiness had nothing to do with a global pandemic. The hollow aisle remained chock full of greed, the elevation of self, and the absolute fear of death. All of these things connected together in my mind as small symptomatic pieces to a societal puzzle. An old famine came to light in the darkness. For decades, it had been lurking underneath it all. Every once in a while, its subtle void boils up past the surface affecting everyone in its path. Ignoring its spread has slowly led to this desolate land.
This famine still runs rampant, even despite all the trials and lessons spanning decades of time. It has led to widely accepted deceptions, including a reliance on false teachers, political leaders, and corrupted media. It’s led to a common reliance on every false sense of security. It’s led to broken families, angry takeout lines, and professing Christians panicking over toilet paper. This panicked response to fear is manifested by a famine in the soul.
Sadly, the one famine we can control is the one we ignore the most. As for the cure, its power is proven. Yet, we still push it aside. We can do better, we tell ourselves. We remove its power and embrace a bleak future, choosing to live in a state of scarcity. When will the famine end? When even facing death doesn’t work, what will it take for us to embrace the cure? What will it take to wake us up? Without it, there is no foundation. Without it, we’re settling for a society held together by division. The answers are not in the nightly news; they’re not in the school system; they’re not in the government or the constitution. No worldly material can fill the soul. No fighter can die for its freedom. We can stock up on food. We can stock up on toilet paper. The supply is always temporary. It will always run out. So, it’s up to each one of us to decide. Will we put our hopes in avoiding death that is sure to come? Or will we choose to die to ourselves and humbly seek true freedom?
Already waiting silently on a dusty shelf or in the dark drawer of a nightstand, there is a well that never runs dry. There is salvation that leads to life. There is food to replenish the soul in a stockpile that never runs out. In it, you can walk through an empty decaying world with peace and hope, unashamed because death can never hold you again.
How long will this famine exist in your life? The only missing link is your decision. As Americans gather around dinner tables and listen to news updates and the many dark stresses of the time, the Word of God sits amidst the chaos full of sustenance, waiting patiently for an everlasting hunger to seek its pages.
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through
endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Romans 15:4
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Psalm 34:10
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread,
he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
John 6:51
