Scarcity in Venezuela
While home in Kansas, I recently went with my dad to the Amish produce auction. There we bid on and bought pallets of fresh pumpkins, newly-picked organic watermelons, and pounds of tomatoes straight from the farm. The taste and the smell of the fresh fruit and vegetables were rewarding and worth the time and effort.
Imagine going to the auction, farmers market, or grocery store to buy fresh produce and getting sold garbage instead. Imagine only finding enough cornflour to make a few pancakes to live on every day. Imagine walking down a grocery aisle full of empty shelves or going to a market for staples and only finding rotting animal hides and moldy cheese being sold for food. This scarcity is the reality that many are living in Venezuela. It is what 62-year-old Ana Nuñez finds when she searches for food.
Now I want you to imagine going to a church searching for the Bread of Life, for the only One who can truly satisfy your soul. Imagine going to a church expecting to hear the truth, expecting salvation and forgiveness of sins, and instead of learning the true gospel of Jesus Christ, you are fed lies and empty promises that you can work for your salvation, that saints of old can intercede for you. You go for the Bread of Life and are given the spiritual equivalent of rotting cowhides and moldy cheese. This is the spiritual situation in Venezuela. Not only is there a scarcity of physical food, but there is also a scarcity of the gospel. The people are spiritually starving. They are being offered a rotten alternative hidden in the guise of a works-based religion that will send them to hell.
Most of you reading this are like me. We have been gifted an abundant supply of the truth of God’s Word. Are we just going to keep it to ourselves, while the rest of the world spiritually starves in darkness? Or are we going to be more like our Savior, who was moved with compassion for the multitudes who were scattered abroad, who saw them as sheep having no shepherd?
In Matthew 9:37-38, Jesus said, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” There is no scarcity in the harvest of lost souls, only in labourers who will go and tell them. Are you willing to be a labourer and run into the harvest?
About the Author
Chestley Howell is on deputation as a missionary to Colombia. You can connect with him at chestleyhowell@gmail.com.
