By Dean LuskI woke up this morning and from the time I was conscious I had the first few lines of
Gungor's song "
Dry Bones" in my head:
My soul cries out;
My soul cries out for You.
These bones cry out;
These dry bones cry to You. These words tend to transport my thoughts to
Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones and to
David's lament in Psalm 102.
And I identify with those bones lately.
Bluntly, I've been parched the past few days. Spiritual dryness. Even failure. I hate that desert, even though I traveled there on my own. I'm desperate to be rid of whatever little idols I'm holding onto that weigh me down and to run to the oasis where Jesus is waiting on me. Or maybe to the place up ahead where He's just holding a small canteen.
Anything.
So the Gungor song was incredibly appropriate for my mind to wake up with. I poured my coffee (which, ironically, is a
diuretic when consumed in very large quantities) and took my Bible with me onto the deck in the back of our house, stepping into the misty early morning dawn.
My eyes were greeted by a cluster of shadowy figures standing not too far away in the field behind our house. As my vision adjusted to the meager 4:55 AM light, I was able to make out the shape of six deer staring back at me. Immediately
the words scrolled through my head: "
As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God." Wow.
I don't know how you react to the little things that God puts in place, but my response to Him was, "Very cool. Thank you for letting me know You hear me." It was like jumping into a river.
I sat down at the deck table to read the devotional for the day from Oswald Chambers'
My Utmost for His Highest. I love the book -- often hits me between the eyes -- but I rarely use it for a devotional because there's so little Scripture in it. The verse fragment of the day was from 1 Peter 2:9: "you are... a royal priesthood..." As I typically do when I use
My Utmost for His Highest, I decided to read the entire chapter that the verse of the day was taken from. In this case it was
1 Peter 2.
I was quite stunned when I read verse 2-3: "Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation.
Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness."
Cry out. My soul cries out. These dry bones cry for You.
...Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”
John 7:37-38, NLT
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Comments (4)
Thirst and longing. Can they ever be fully satisfied?
@Inciteful-You know I used to wonder why I never felt satisfied in my thirsting & longing for more Jesus, more, more, more...But never fully feeling like I could get enough...I know that God makes it feel just so because this is not our home & these are not our permanent bodies...so we long for truth & it is like God is drawing us in a little more each time & He makes it so we crave & need only what He can give.. He makes it so, that what you once loved or once did seem not so interesting anymore..Especially that thing you think you can't live without...Then you realize, 'Oh, I am not my own, I belong to who created me"...I realized, it's God's will be done, not my little fickle will...I am nothing without Jesus...Nothing!!
Anyway...Great post, Dean!!Very grateful for the amazing words of encouragement. I don't think you know how much it means to know that people go through the same stuff I do.