Moments Of Refreshing

Psalms 63 may have captured the time King David was fleeing from his son, Absalom.

Absalom tried to overthrow his father to become king of Israel. This treacherous act was a fulfillment of the prophet's words when David was confronted aftering committing adultery and killing the woman's husband (2 Samuel 12:10).

Now, at the height of successful victories and reigning over Israel, David finds himself in the wilderness. The same waterless place when he fled from King Saul. But this time the enemy was different. It was his own son.

Do you find yourself in a spiritual wilderness? Does it seem your prospects and promises have dried up? Do you find yourself running from a ghost from the past? You may feel exhausted from running in vast, open spaces with no shelter. There's no rest and no water to refresh your parched lips. Prayers die on your lips. Nothing lives in this barren place and you feel your life slowly ebb away.

David refuses to spiral down to self pity or self loathing over past mistakes and failures. Rather, David recalls God's faithfulness and determines to bless God despite his arid condition. He proclaims, "Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!" (2 Samuel 12:10).

Friends, wilderness experiences are temporal similiar to the natural seasons. And if anything, such a dry season should cause us to dig deeper in loving God with a renewed passion. You see the outward state does not shape the internal spiritual condition.

When we hide the word of God in our hearts that changes us it will in turn exert power over our surroundings. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19).

You may be in a dry place but you are not dried up and withered. Trees lose their leaves in the autumn but it's not because the tree is dead. Life still flows through their roots to the very highest branch.

This is a canteen promise holding living water to refresh your weary souls.

Take a long satisfying sip.

They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. Jeremiah 17:8 NLT