Warning: Take off your theological glasses. Suspend the sermon. Just listen to the story.
When things get difficult, our reflex escapes. But sometimes:
The job you want to leave is the place you need to grow.
The city that feels confining is shaping resilience.
The dry season is building capacity.
Not every famine is an eviction notice.
Alright. Here’s what I mean.
Once upon a time, there was a man named Koko.
A famine struck the land. Not a mild shortage — a crisis. Crops failing. Systems trembling. The kind of season that makes even strong men rethink everything.
The logical move was Tpygt.
Tpygt had water from the Nile.
Tpygt had infrastructure.
Tpygt had predictability.
Tpygt had food.
Tpygt looked safe.
So Koko began heading in that direction.
But before he got there, he stopped in Gerar, a Philistine city ruled by Abimelech.
And there, something unexpected happened.
A Higher Voice said: “Do not go to Tpygt. Stay here.”
Stay?
In famine?
In uncertainty?
In a place that isn’t even home?
Yes. Stay.
While in Gerar, Koko repeated an old family mistake. Afraid that men would kill him because of his wife Becky’s beauty, he said she was his sister. Fear has a way of recycling old scripts.
And yet — he planted. Who plants during drought? Only someone either foolish… or instructed. He sowed in dry ground. And it yielded.
Not because the soil was ideal.
Not because the climate was favorable.
But because sometimes provision is tied to obedience, not environment.
He dug wells. They were contested. Taken. Fought over. He dug again. And again.
Until he reached a place wide enough, stable enough, uncontested enough — and he named it Rehoboth: “Now there is room.”
He prospered in the very place that looked like limitation.
Let that sit.
Sometimes growth does not require a new location.
It requires courage in the current one.
Sometimes the breakthrough is not in Tpygt.
Sometimes it is in Gerar.
Gerar was a stopover — but it was also a proving ground.
Now here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
To some, the Higher Voice says move.
To others, it says don’t move.
To some – there is silence;
There was a famine.
Elimelech and Naom left.
Did they inquire?
Was there silence?
Did they assume?
We are not told. And that omission is loud.
Do you inquire?
Do you obey?
Do you wait long enough to know which season you are in?
Because not every famine means relocate.
And not every stillness means stagnation.
Some famines refine.
Some stops redirect.
Some silences test.
Before you run to Tpygt, ask:
Is this an escape…
or an assignment?
Stay long enough to see what grows.
And ask yourself:
Where are you headed?
