Global Food Shortages Today

Yesterday I received two emails from global suppliers of foods regarding pricing they could not provide to me for certain food items that I had requested. This is due to their present inability to acquire these food items because of current global shortages. Prices of basic food stuffs will continue to rise for the foreseeable future, and some items will become less available because of global demands.

We live in a society where as long as we can walk into a store and purchase what we want, we feel confidence. Yet, Colleen and I remember a trip to Hawaii many years ago. Our timing was less than ideal, but it was a trip we had won so went. She was experiencing horrible morning sickness and a major hurricane hit the Island just a day or two after our arrival. We had to walk up about 20+ floors just to get to our hotel room because there was no electricity, and it was pitch dark. For a first time father-to-be, I was very concerned for Colleen.

All restaurants were closed and so we went to local stores to buy what we needed. When we went to a grocery store to buy some needed food items, we found that everything was gone and not one item remained on the shelves -- food, water, clothing, heating supplies, and so forth were all gone. I've never forgotten since this strange vacation that the shelves in our local stores are just a few truck deliveries away from being utterly empty. What do you suppose will happen when Isaiah's words are fulfilled which warn us that all our chariots will cease to run in a single day?

As you consider your basic needs for food stuffs such as grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and other basic necessities we should have on hand, I heartily recommend the following:

1. First, follow the counsel of the Lord's servants with exactness in these matters. Visit the Provident Living website; study it prayerfully, and be obedient. Idolatry, or going beyond the mark for the wrong reasons, will not help you either in the event of catastrophe. If you do more than what is asked, do so only out of love and for the purpose of lifting and helping others. If it is an exercise of placing your faith in the arm of flesh, it will do you little to no good.
2. Second, make and keep an everlasting covenant with God to repent of your sins, to obey his commandments, to obey the voice of his spirit with exactness, and to follow his son in righteousness. Study The Robe of His Righteousness, and The Doctrine of Christ and do these things with real intent and without hypocrisy or deception before God. Qualify yourself to be surrounded in his robe of righteousness continually and qualify also for God's covenant promises that he makes and keeps with repentant or covenant Israel. By so doing you will lay hold of three important promises: First, he promises to bless you temporally with food, clothing, and all other temporal needs forever and ever. Second, he promises to bless your children or your posterity (dominion) forever and ever. Third, he offers an everlasting promise to protect you from your enemies and from evil forever and ever, as you keep your covenants. A perfect brightness of hope is obtained by those who understand God's promises and who live in a manner to bind his promises to themselves. To all such, they recognize he is a God who canst not lie; therefore they retain a perfect brightness of hope as they make, renew, and keep their sacred covenants with him always.
3. Go about doing good continually! Accept the challenge to ask God daily who he would like you to help, and then go about doing the good he would have you do.

We will continue to facilitate bulk food purchases (chia seed, honey, nuts and seeds, and so forth) as we are able. We encourage you to participate to the extent you are able and to share good opportunities with others. However, as much we enjoy discussing food matters and facilitating these things, we encourage first and foremost that you place your trust in God and in the covenants you make and keep with him above all things. Do what you can for self and others and rely upon him for all else. He helped the widow of Zarapath so that her pantry never failed her; he provided manna to ancient Israel for forty years; he multiplied a few loaves of bread and fish to feed thousands. Which would you prefer to have in times of emergency, things that robbers can break through and steal, or his covenant promises?

Jim and Colleen

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