July 23, Water in a Dry Place

Today’s reading: Psalms 111-115

“Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water” - Psalm 114:7-8.

God led His people in to the wilderness, another word for the Sinai desert. The temperatures were scorching, the nights were bitter cold, there was no food, and of course there was no water. What’s more, there were millions of people, plus all their herds of animals, and they wandered there for 40 years before they entered the Promised Land. Did any of them starve or die of thirst? Absolutely not! God was able to provide for them; in fact, He led them there to prove that He could provide under impossible conditions to build their faith. Instead, they hardened their hearts and did not have faith:

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:1-5).

Are you like the Israelites in the desert, not trusting God even though He has shown Himself strong on your behalf again and again, providing something from nothing for you? Are you in a desert, while God sustains you? Do you resent the desert, or appreciate God’s presence while you live there?