The Richest of Fare

 "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare." Isaiah 55:12

    When I was a kid, eating out was a rarity, so when we piled into the family sedan and drove to McDonalds, it was a memorable occasion. I can still recall the aroma of french fries wafting from the golden arches, drawing us like crazed moths to a porch light. We threw a few fries onto the hood of the car for even the birds were hungry for them. 

    Ah, the days of blissful ignorance, before words like cholesterol and sodium content stayed our hands.

    I have noticed a hunger reminiscent of those days, but it's not for food, it's for the Word of God. Three times this past week, I wove scripture into the conversations I was having and I noticed how thirsty these folks were to hear from Him - like a tender rain on parched ground, they drank it up. 

    What a blessing it is to be a Christian these days when the fields are ripe for harvest all around us. The prophet Amos said:

"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. People 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." Amos 8: 11-12

    Let us don our aprons and feed those who are hungering for righteousness while we still can. When we, who have been satiated until our cups overflow, share our meal with others, they will then "delight in the richest of fare," and it doesn't cost us a thing.  

    People are famished and we hold the menu. "For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things." (Psalm 107:9)

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" Romans 10: 13-14