Water in the Desert

¹ A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.
Psalms 63:1

David paints the picture of the Wilderness as an arid, waterless place where one's flesh will die without water. The desert is a symbol of where we meet God. In the desert there is no place to hide and there is no pretension of what one needs to survive. It is a life and death. And, water is the source of life.

In the days of David when he was hiding from Saul he hid in the Judean desert. One of the places he frequented was called the Oasis of En-Gedi. Near the Dead Sea, fresh water gushes forth from the desert floor creating a waterfall. In this lush oasis, there is abundant life and vegetation surrounded by desert. The contrast was used by Psalmists as a description of how our souls thirst for God.

Jesus declared to the woman at the well in the gospel of John that he was able to give her "living water". God's design is to quench our thirst with his love and grace that gives us hope of eternal life. Abraham, Moses and Jesus all discovered their revelation of God in the wilderness. I think that same holds true for every believer this day. The wilderness is not a physical desert; but, it is the place where a believer discovers that only by trusting in the Lord, do we learn to survive.