the Israel Series: In the desert

If you’ve talked with me recently or follow me on Facebook, you may know that I just got back from a once-in-a-lifetime trip to visit the country of Israel with my university. It was an incredible opportunity, and I learned so much politically and historically, but most of all, spiritually. We packed so much into every minute of the trip, and every day my mind was blown at least 5 times. Seeing the places I’ve read about in Scripture come to life right before my eyes was just beyond words. We all just kept saying to each other, “Wow, are we really here?” And that was every single day, every single place we went. I gained so much information and connected so many things in Scripture that I’m still trying to process everything we learned. But there were so many amazing moments that I really want to share, so I’m starting a little series here to write about some of the places and memories from our trip that I hope will inspire and move you.

Our first night and morning in Israel we spent in the desert. I had never been in a true desert before, and the landscape blew me away. Dry, dry dirt everywhere and these incredible flat-topped mountains. Everything the same dusty beige. And surprisingly for the desert, a huge body of water to the right, so enormous it looked like an ocean. The Dead Sea, with a salt concentration so high it kills life, standing like a cruel mockery to a thirsty wanderer in the land.

In the middle of this terrain, our professor read Psalm 63.

“O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water…” (v. 1)

In the desert, where you are surrounded by nothing but barren land, where the largest source of water is so undrinkable that it will do the opposite of what water is supposed to do for you, in this desert, David’s soul thirsted for God.

I don’t think I ever understood the desperation of a “dry and thirsty land” until I was standing in it myself. And standing there in it, I realized that it is with this kind of desperation, the desperation of a person who hasn’t seen water in days, that we ought to long for God and diligently seek Him. We need to run after Him like He’s our only hope. We need to search for Him like He’s our source of life. We need to ache for Him like we’d die without Him. Because the truth is that we would. He is all of those things to us and more. He is the only one who really sustains us.

Life can be as desperate as a dry and thirsty land. Sometimes we feel completely hopeless and lost, with no idea when “water” will be in sight. In those moments, we need only God to be our sustaining source.

But even when life is not like that, we still need to seek God just as persistently, with the same kind of thirsting that we’ve learned from seasons in the desert. David knew it. When he was in the desert, he longed not for physical provision, but for spiritual life.

“So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless you while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.” (v. 2-5)

In Jesus, my soul shall be satisfied. A thirsty, dry mouth will yet praise Him with joyful and fulfilled lips. He is life in the desert.

 

Amelia