Again. As before, here I am.
The rain falls outside, finally. Months, it seems since it fell.
I should be celebrating. All about me is wet. Hydrated, they call it. At least, that’s what they would call it in the medical profession.
Like the earth, we need hydration. It’s why we drink water. When we are thirsty, having struggled through some grueling course—those obstacles that challenge and stretch us—we drink it. By the gallons, it seems.
So easy. Are you thirsty?
Drink.
I remember it from my childhood days in church, the call to all who are thirsty. Congregations sang songs about it—the thirst and the cure. Preachers shouted the words from the pulpits.
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.“
(Isaiah 55: 1, NKJV)
What could be simpler?
Are you thirsty?
Drink!
The scripture is a clear reference to God’s grace, His salvation offered freely. Millions, including me, have already satisfied their thirst in that fountain that flows without cost to us.
But, it’s raining now. And, some yet feel a desert inside themselves. Not from the lack of salvation, but from a deficit of joy.
The folks who wept at the reading of God’s Word in Ezra’s day knew that deficit.
“…for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10b, NKJV)
One of my young artist friends who, I think, knows the feeling of being in the desert herself, today described the feeling of the rainy day as gently claustrophobic. It is the certainty of rain—life-giving showers from heaven—flooding the earth, but the unsatisfying reality of watching it from the cloister of her front room.
I know how she feels.
If you’re thirsty, then drink.
Can it be so simple?
When I was a child, I danced and cavorted in the rain. Soaking wet, my playmates and I floated sticks and dug channels in the earth for the runoff.
Joy-filled and water-logged, with no thought for the opinions of others, neither peers nor parents, neighbors nor passers-by, we were saturated with water and a wild love for life.
I want that again.
Who wouldn’t?
And the Teacher said to them, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.“ (John 10:10b, NKJV)
I am struggling, having passed through what have seemed like insurmountable obstacles over the past weeks and months. My soul is thirsty. Dry.
All around, the rain is falling.
Really. Pouring.
I wonder what I should do next.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it produce and sprout,
And providing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
So will My word be which goes out of My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it.
(Isaiah 55:10-11, NASB)
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2022. All Rights Reserved.