“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.” (Isaiah 55:1-3a) When you incline your ear toward God, what do you hear? If “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” what are the words that are coming to you these days? Or do things feel a bit silent, in spite of spiritual practices, Scripture, and spiritual community? Do you ever feel like you resonate with ancient Israel’s experience when the prophet Amos describes: “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.” Have you been hungry for what feels like too long? Has it left you wandering and wondering where God is? What do you do when you are feeling this kind of hunger, seemingly left alone to fend for yourself? What kinds of things do you say about/to God? Is your drive to understand? To feed the hunger in whatever way possible? To pretend it’s not there, and just go about your spiritual life in all the same ways? What if this deep hunger is an invitation to something new? What if the experience of God’s seeming absence (even though you *know* God is with you) is meant to tap into your longing in a different way and invite you deeper? What if it is a kindness, this hunger with no easily apparent way to meet it? What might God be inviting you into in this season, this day?

Posted by Anam Cara Abbey at 2022-10-20 13:46:20 UTC