As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday where we come together in gratitude for all the things we have received, let us also keep in mind the seasons where we were in want—for everyone, each one of us has experience want of some kind, at some point in our lives, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. What if the emptiness we experienced in those seasons wasn’t the problem, but the solution? What if the famine was actually God’s severe mercy, preparing us for a reconciliation or restoration we couldn’t have imagined?
This week, as tables fill with abundance and families gather in gratitude, we want to explore an uncomfortable but ultimately hope-filled truth: sometimes the greatest blessings come wrapped in the humbling paper of lack. Through two parallel biblical narratives—Joseph’s brothers during the famine and the prodigal son in the far country—we discover that famine creates the conditions for the reconciliation and restoration our souls most desperately need.
Years after Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, a severe famine struck the land of Canaan. This famine—predicted through Pharaoh’s dreams and interpreted by Joseph—became the instrument that would eventually reunite a broken family. Genesis 42 tells us that when Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent his sons, saying, “Why do you look at one another?” The famine had reached the point where inaction meant death.
Without the famine, Joseph’s brothers would have had no reason to travel to Egypt. They would have remained in Canaan, living with their guilt and unresolved sin, while Joseph remained a memory they tried to forget. The famine forced them out of their comfortable existence and into a desperate journey for survival. It was hunger—physical, undeniable hunger—that drove them to bow before the brother they had betrayed, unknowingly fulfilling the very dreams that had sparked their jealousy decades earlier.
The famine stripped away their pride and self-sufficiency, humbling them to the point where reconciliation became possible. Over the course of their journeys to Egypt, we watch the famine do its deep work: exposing their guilt, creating opportunities for repentance, testing their transformed hearts. When Judah finally offers himself as a substitute for Benjamin, we see men utterly changed from those who callously sold their brother years before.
Joseph himself recognizes the redemptive nature of this famine when he reveals his identity: “And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life… God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:5-8).
The famine was the blessing that transformed a story of betrayal into a story of salvation. What seemed like catastrophe—severe, multi-year famine—was actually the pathway to forgiveness offered and received, a fractured family restored, and God’s covenant promises preserved through Israel. The temporary lack produced permanent restoration.
In Luke 15, Jesus tells of a young man who demands his inheritance early and squanders it in reckless living. But it is what happens next that reveals the blessing of famine: “And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need… And he arose and came to his father” (Luke 15:14, 20).
The famine in the far country was not incidental to the story—it was essential. Without it, the prodigal might have continued his self-destructive path indefinitely, always finding just enough to sustain his rebellion. The famine was the crisis that brought him to his senses. Feeding pigs and longing to eat their food, he “came to himself” and remembered his father’s house.
Notice what the famine accomplished: it stripped away all the illusions. It revealed that the “freedom” he sought was actually slavery, that his independence had led to desperate dependence on strangers, and that the far country he ran to could never satisfy. The abundance he thought he wanted left him empty; the famine became the catalyst that awakened true hunger—not just for bread, but for home, for relationship, for the father he had rejected.
Like Joseph’s brothers, the prodigal son’s famine forced a journey—not outward to Egypt seeking grain, but inward to repentance and then homeward to restoration. The famine humbled him enough to return, not demanding his rights, but hoping merely for the position of a servant. And it was precisely this humility, born from famine, that positioned him to receive not servanthood but sonship, not rejection but celebration, not mere survival but abundant life.
When we place these two narratives side by side, we discover a consistent pattern in how God uses seasons of lack to produce lasting abundance:
Famine exposes our true condition. Joseph’s brothers were forced to confront their past sin as their desperation grew. The prodigal son came to see his life for what it really was—empty and enslaved—only through the lens of need. Sometimes we need to reach the end of our resources before we can honestly assess where we are and how we got there.
Famine creates the humility necessary for grace. Both the brothers and the prodigal son were brought low. Their self-sufficiency was stripped away, creating the posture necessary to receive what they could never earn or demand. Pride keeps us from reconciliation; famine dismantles pride. There’s a reason Jesus said the poor in spirit are blessed—they know their need and are positioned to receive the kingdom.
Famine drives us toward what truly sustains. Physical hunger drove Joseph’s brothers to Egypt where they found not just grain but forgiveness and family. Spiritual and physical hunger drove the prodigal home where he found not just food but a father’s love. Famine clarifies what matters most. In seasons of plenty, we can deceive ourselves about what we’re truly living for; in seasons of lack, our deepest values become clear.
Famine is temporary, but its fruits are eternal. The famine eventually ended in both stories, but the reconciliation it produced lasted forever. The brothers’ family was reunited and Israel was preserved through the famine Joseph had prepared for. The prodigal was restored to sonship and the father’s joy was complete. What was lost temporarily in comfort was gained permanently in relationship.
The theological patterns we see in Joseph and the prodigal son are not merely ancient narratives—they remain living realities in communities around the world today. In places like L’Moti in Northern Kenya, famine is not a metaphor but an ever-present reality. The concept of seasonal want and seasonal plenty shapes every aspect of life in the sub-Saharan desert, where communities exist hundreds of kilometers from paved roads, electricity, or reliable water sources.
L’Moti sits deep in the interior bush of Marsabit County, nearly 300 kilometers north of what was once our most remote church plant. The journey there crosses desert landscape where any mechanical failure could leave you stranded in isolation, where the route passes through areas infiltrated by extremists, where the sun beats down relentlessly on communities that know both the blessing of rain and the curse of its absence. This is a place where famine—real, physical, life-threatening famine—is not a distant biblical concept but a recurring teacher.
Yet what strikes anyone who spends time in L’Moti is not the poverty but the joy. When we gathered in August 2025 to open and commission the newly completed church building, the celebration that erupted was unlike anything most Western Christians have experienced. Women processed from the shade tree that had been their meeting place, singing praises all the way to the new building. As the service concluded, spontaneous worship exploded—singing, dancing, laughter—before the entire community sat down to share a meal together. Not just church members, but the entire village, fed as an act of ministry and fellowship.
This effusive joy exists not despite the cycles of famine but in many ways because of them. When you live in a place where seasons of want are inevitable, you learn dependence in ways that abundance never teaches. You learn that community is not optional but essential for survival. You learn that today’s provision is cause for celebration because tomorrow’s is never guaranteed. You learn, as Joseph’s brothers and the prodigal son learned, that self-sufficiency is an illusion and that true life is found in relationship—with God and with one another.
The theological truth underlying both the biblical narratives and the lived reality of places like L’Moti is this: God allows us to experience famine in our lives to bring us back to His presence. Not because He delights in our suffering, but because He knows that abundance often breeds forgetfulness while scarcity creates hunger—not just for bread, but for the Bread of Life. Famine strips away the comfortable illusions that keep us from recognizing our need. It dismantles the self-sufficiency that prevents us from crying out. It creates the crisis that drives us home to the Father who has been watching and waiting for our return.
In Northern Kenya, I have watched this pattern repeat itself again and again. The Moran warriors who laid down their weapons to pray around a shared goat meal did so because the desert had taught them that strength alone cannot sustain life. The 22 villagers from Nairibi and Lontolio who were baptized in August made their public declarations in a place where water is precious—the symbolism was not lost on them. The El Molo people, isolated for generations on the shores of Lake Turkana, received the Gospel for the first time because their physical isolation had created a spiritual hunger that 540 souls felt simultaneously when the message finally reached them.
Famine, whether physical or spiritual, creates the conditions for homecoming. It forces the journey that pride would never take voluntarily. It produces the humility that makes reconciliation possible. And while the famine itself is temporary, the restoration it produces—when we allow it to drive us back to God’s presence—is eternal.
The church in L’Moti was thriving under a shade tree long before the building was constructed. The structure simply gave permanent form to a community that had already learned what Joseph’s brothers and the prodigal son discovered: that the greatest abundance is found not in the absence of want, but in the presence of the One who satisfies every hunger and welcomes us home with joy.
I remember a season years ago when what I thought was stability revealed itself as spiritual complacency. The “famine” came not through dramatic loss but through a growing awareness of emptiness—a sense that the abundant life Jesus promised felt distant despite all my religious activity. That season of spiritual hunger, uncomfortable as it was, drove me to seek God with an intensity I’d never known in easier times. The lack I felt was actually invitation.
The pattern echoes the Biblical narratives. Whether the famine is relational, financial, emotional, or spiritual, God can use seasons of lack to drive us toward the reconciliation and restoration we most desperately need—often in ways we couldn’t have orchestrated ourselves.
As we gather around Thanksgiving tables this week, full of food and (hopefully) gratitude, let us also remember and honor the famine seasons that shaped us. Let us ask ourselves:
What season of lack in my life ultimately led to greater abundance—not of things, but of relationship, character, or faith? Where did I experience want that awakened deeper hunger for what truly matters? What “famine” drove me to a reconciliation I’d been avoiding or a restoration I didn’t think possible?
The beautiful truth in both Joseph’s story and the prodigal’s parable is this: the famine was limited, but the reconciliation it produced was abundant and permanent. The temporary lack opened the door to lasting plenty—not just of food, but of forgiveness, restored identity, and renewed relationship. God was there in the famine, not causing suffering for its own sake, but creating the conditions where pride could be humbled, hearts could be softened, and reconciliation could finally happen.
Perhaps the famine you’re in right now—or the one you remember from your past—isn’t evidence of God’s absence but of His severe mercy. Perhaps the emptiness you feel is not punishment but invitation. Perhaps what seems like lack is actually preparation for an abundance of grace you cannot yet imagine.
The prodigal’s father was watching for his son’s return, ready with robe and ring and feast. Joseph had storehouses full of grain and a heart full of forgiveness. In both cases, abundance was already prepared for those who would come. But it took famine to make them come home.
This Thanksgiving, as we count our blessings, let us also bless our famines—the seasons that cost us what we could afford to lose in order to gain what we cannot afford to miss. For in God’s economy, the blessing of famine is profound: it’s the crisis that precipitates reconciliation, the lack that leads to restoration, the hunger that drives us back to the feast where we discover we were always welcomed, always wanted, always home.
From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us. Acts 17:26-27