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In A Dry and Parched Land

             You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. (Psalm 63:1-2)

David describes a tough time. He was in the Desert of Judah, and God wasn’t meeting him there. People then tended to live a little closer to difficulty than I think I do. Growing up as a shepherd boy, he learned to deal with difficulties, but one of the problems with difficulties is that they can quickly turn into nasty gods. They demand attention, sometimes to ensure our survival. The alternative is to seek God, but God isn’t like Lurch (the Addams Family butler), who appears and takes orders the second the bell rings.  

There are times when God leaves us out in the desert. We aren’t really alone, but it feels like it. He lets us search and not find. He fails to meet needs. Will we turn to other gods? Even the god that is the desert (problem) itself?  Will we put ourselves and our feelings on the altar, or on the throne? God knows the answer, but do we? Do we recognize the difference? For example, how much of the time does “Thy will be done” mean “Watch me” or even “hold my beer”?

Deserts are one of the ways we discover who or what our gods are. There are also times when we may have to look both at our circumstances and at our past experiences, and hold on to the memory of seeing God “in the sanctuary” and beholding His power and His glory, because He is God and the desert is not.

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