The other morning I was reading and praying through Ezekiel 36 when The Lord opened my eyes to a new understanding. The famine mentioned in those verses can be seen as a spiritual famine as well. You may be thinking, “Say what?”

Up until this revelation I was like anyone else. Reading the chapter and picturing physical famine. You know – no rain leading to vegetation dying which lead to scarce food sources. All this resulting in people losing strength, becoming feeble and sometimes running away to other locations. Anytime the Bible speaks of famine those were the results.

The verses in Ezekiel 36 also talk about the disgrace of famine. Perhaps not today, but back then, I surmise that the areas surrounding the affected country felt sorry for it, or maybe accepted that the people were being punished by some deity. There’s no mention of other nations lending a helping hand. While they allowed the affected people into their towns, for the most part they probably just stood back and observed how the nation handled their troubles. After all, it was apparently a disgrace on the people.

I’m thinking that in today’s world a famine could even include the lack of internet services. That in itself has grounded airlines and halted computer work for hours. A strange type of famine if you think about it. In any case, everyone can appreciate the hard times that occur with any type of scarcity.

But the signs I mentioned above are from physical famines. As if to confirm there is both physical and spiritual, I awoke this morning to the audio Bible reading 1 Corinthians 15. When I heard verse forty-four I felt like I was struck over the head by a two-by-four. In the NLT it reads, “For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.” Ding, ding, ding. Just like there are physical famines there are also spiritual famines.

So what exactly is a spiritual famine? It’s not the spiritual hunger which can only be satisfied by asking Jesus into our lives. That is satisfied once we have the Holy Trinity within us. Ezekiel’s passage was written to the Israelites … a.k.a. those belonging to God. In today’s world that includes the Church. So this famine in Ezekiel is something that was experienced by God’s children.

Dwelling on the concept of spiritual famine I realized that the early church was powerful. The New Testament is full of the ways it was attacked physically, financially, and spiritually. Yet, in the midst of these hostilities, believers from the days of the Bible performed all kinds of miracles.

Do you see that in every church today? I’d say no.

But it has happened. I’ve seen it and experienced it. But it doesn’t happen every week.

If we look at the first church of the New Testament as being spiritually full and well feed, and we compare the modern church to that. Would you say we are lacking something? My answer is yes. I would even suggest we are in a state of spiritual famine. Sadly, this is probably the main cause for many churches shrinking in size and their inability to draw in the young. In a way, that is a disgrace of famine.

How do we correct this? I could give a critical list of what needs to be changed. But then what purpose would that serve? And honestly, I need to work on me first. (Matthew 7:5) I need to see where I’m spiritually weak and lacking. Where I fail to show a healthy, joy-filled, spiritually well feed life through which miracles flow. I want to encourage each of us to ask ourselves and Jesus, “Where am I showing famine to non-believers?”

Only by changing us first can we begin to change our churches. And just think how dynamic that could be. We’ll be like the first century churches. Don’t worry. Jesus will only have us take one step of change at a time. He is after all our hope for restoration.