Water in the Wilderness
As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools They go from strength to strengıh. Psalm 84:6-7
Psalm 84 is a beautiful and liberating psalm. One of the glorious themes of his psalm is that the negatives of human life do not have to be victorious over us because there is a power that can break their depressing hold.
The psalmist speaks about passing through the Valley of Baca, and although no one knows exactly what this refers to, it seems to speak of a place of great dryness. The writer alludes to an experience of extreme difficulty that the presence of sufficient water would solve. We find that the Lord provides refreshing streams and pools of water.
Have you found yourself in a place of great dryness spiritually, emotionally, or even mentally? Do you know that there is One who can break through the dryness in your heart and produce streams in the desert?
The resources of another world can be made available to enable you and me to face the dryness in our lives just as waters were provided to help the psalmist through the Valley of Baca.
We can find comfort in the fact that the psalmist remembered God’s provision of food and water to the Israelites as they passed through the wilderness. God did not desert the Israelites, and he will not forsake us.
The knowledge that there is another world, that there is One in that world who cares about us and is able to provide for us, enables us to see our situation in a new light.
—Dennis Kinslaw
This Day with the Master
In the midst of this devotional thought, Kinslaw asks two very poignant questions: Have you found yourself in a place of great dryness spiritually, emotionally, or even mentally? Do you know that there is One who can break through the dryness in your heart and produce streams in the desert? My prayer is that this reading finds its way to someone today in just the nick of time. In those seasons where we can answer ‘yes’ to the first, our ability to answer ‘yes’ to the second is all the more critical. Often times, the storms of this world require otherworldly resource, or heaven’s intervention. Allow me to encourage you to seek God’s presence in prayer, crying out in vulnerability and honesty, seeking God’s remedy, declaring even as Jacob did (Gen. 32:22-32), “I will not let you go until you bless me!” I know our God to be the One who does break through the dryness in our hearts to produce streams in the desert. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics