Are you planting and nothing is growing? Micah

Micah 6:14-15 (NASBStr)

“You will eat, but you will not be satisfied,

And your vileness will be in your midst.

You will try to remove for safekeeping,

But you will not preserve anything,

And what you do preserve I will give to the sword.

 “You will sow but you will not reap.

You will tread the olive but will not anoint yourself with oil;

And the grapes, but you will not drink wine.

Have you ever felt like you were spinning your wheels?   You keep doing the same things and, even though the things you are doing are supposed to produced results, nothing different happens.   People say that the definition of insanity is that you do the same thing over and over and expect different results.   Yet, you keep doing the same thing and different results don't happen.   There are many reasons for this to happen but in the above passage in Micah we see one of them: Sometimes God withholds the results that come from doing normal things simply to show us His sovereign rule in our lives, or because of sin in our lives.  In the above passage it was for both reasons.  That nation of Israel, Judah in particular, had sinned and continued in their sin.  As a result, normal activities would not produce the normal results.   Eating would not satisfy hunger (might this say something about our weight problem in our society?).   The land, although tilled and planted properly, would not produce crops.   Normal patterns of crushing grapes to produce wine would be hindered.   When we are in the midst of doing normal activities and not seeing the expected results it is wise to look to God for the answers.  He might withhold the desired results to draw our attention to Him and to seek His sovereign rule.   If you feel like you are beating your head against the wall it might because in the midst of your normal activities God put the wall there.