I was talking recently with a friend who was having a very difficult week.  She had many complaints, but the biggest one was of her own attitude in the midst of all her trials.  She was spiritually dry.  Parched.  Cooked.

As it just so “happened”, the Sunday morning message at her church at the end of that awful week seemed to be directed right at her.  You know how that is, don’t you?  She had been desperately thirsty for some encouragement, for some empowering from God’s Word, and she told me it was there that morning like water in the desert.

Water in the desert.  We all know how important water is here in the desert Southwest.  Just as water is vital to our physical survival, God’s Word is vital to our spiritual survival.  It seems so amazing and refreshing to us when God seems to know (but of course he knows!) just what we need from his Word when our hearts are lonely, burdened, despondent, or frightened.

Do you remember Hagar? Hagar and her son Ishmael were cast out into the wilderness.  While wandering the wild and desolate land they soon depleted their water supply. Hagar left her son to die, and then she lifted up her voice and cried.  Here she was, wasted, far from home, far from her daily water supply.  Sometimes we wander far away from God’s Word, too, don’t we?  But when Hagar despaired, God, in his infinite mercy, heard her. The Bible says he opened her eyes, and right in front of her she saw a WELL! Water! Life!  God showed Hagar the source of life, and he gave her just what her soul and body craved.  He did not provide her with just a teaspoonful of water, but a lifetime supply!

What would have happened to Hagar if she had seen the well, but had not drawn out the water? How many times have you been spiritually dry, and neglected to open your Bible or receive the preaching of it? That God-given water was the saving of Hagar’s life and the life of her child.  All she had to do was draw it out. The Word of God is the saving of our spiritual lives, as well. I am glad to be able to report that my friend took of the water of life freely that Sunday morning.  She was spiritually revived and energized!  Praise the Lord for his provision!

God’s Word is like a well for us.  There is plenty there to satisfy our thirst! If, in your heart, you have been wandering in the wilderness, cry to the Lord for understanding, for comfort, for courage, for help as you read or listen.  He loves you and cares for you just as he did Hagar and her son. He is ever ready to show you just the thing your soul is longing for!  Don’t turn away from it, and don’t be satisfied with just a teaspoon of relief – keep going back for more.  Get your fill of God’s life-sustaining Word!

I know there are some of you going through heart-wrenching struggles where you are feeling like the current of influence is strongly against you, and you are trying hard to hold your ground.  You don't understand why other Christians can't see things the way you do.  Keep doing right!  It is in hopes that this will be a blessing and an encouragement to you, that I copy this tract here:

     If God has called you to be really like Jesus He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

     Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

     Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their success, of their writings, but the Holy spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

     Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

     The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants you to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small.  He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

     The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with his own.  He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

     Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this particular, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

VICTORY

     When you are forgotten or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you smile inwardly, glorying in the insult or the oversight, because thereby counted worthy to suffer with Christ -- that is victory.

     When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your taste offended, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you take it all in patient, loving silence -- that is victory.

     When you are content with any food, any raiment, and climate, any society, and solituded, and interruption by the will of God -- that is victory.

"Lord Jesus, make thyself to me

A living bright reality;

More present to faith's vision keen

Than any earthly object seen;

More dear, more intimately nigh

Than e'en the dearest earthly tie."