"My soul longs for You, like a parched land." (Psalm 143:6)
In my job I do a lot of driving. Up to 5,000 miles per month. For some, they may drive much more than that and not think anything of it. But for me, that's a LOT of driving.
My bi-weekly route takes me to the eastern part of the state, and my furthest client is over 400 miles from my home. The drive is through desert and farmlands. But in the blistering heat of August, it's mostly through parched desert.
The countryside gets more arid as I return west, towards a small desert town which includes an Air Force base. On much of that route, there is not even any sagebrush, but only six inch high parched grasses, rocks, the occasional antelope, a few rattlesnakes and red tailed hawk. From that small desert town, it's not too much further to get home.
After a long, arduous, three day journey, vision blurred, back aching, weary of avoiding crazed drivers and kamikaze semi trucks, who all seem to be trying to win some imaginary Baja 500 desert race, all I want to do is get home.
To arrive alive.
I often stop at this last desert outpost for a cold drink, and a few gallons of gas if I need it, wishing there was an alternate road to get back home. A road less traveled, where there are no semi trucks, no speeding idiots out of control, no roadside crosses reminding me of the craziness and hazards of driving on this interstate.
But this is the only way to get back to my final destination—to my home. These last few miles seem like they take forever. This crazy interstate seems like it will never end. I'm so tired. I just want to get home. Just a few more miles.
The last 39 miles.
Life is like that for me.
I think for anyone in their 50's, and older, life in this crazy, fallen world has beaten us up. It wears you down. Makes you weary. The losses and disappointments of this life have left scars on our hearts, and in our souls.
Oh sure, everyone younger than 50 has also experienced searing loss, disappointment and painful rejection in this life. I'm not in any way trying to minimize your very real pain and suffering.
But I've discovered after my 53 years, that life gets harder on a person after living 50+ years. The body breaks down, for sure. But the weight of sin, the ugliness and the consequences of sin, and the downward spiral of this wicked world, have worn me down, discouraged my spirit at times and crushed my heart on a daily basis.
But most of all, it's the weariness of soul—from the waiting and longing for my eternal Home and my Eternal Father who waits for me there—that causes my parched soul to ache and thirst, until at last, I see Him face-to-face.
I long for Home.
Today I can totally relate with David as he, with pen in hand, etched out the cry of his heart and soul in Psalm 143, fearful and weary of fleeing from, and being hated and pursued by his enemies, longing for the refreshing of his soul that can only be filled by His Lord:
Does that resonate with your parched soul today?
The Psalms are perhaps one of the greatest gifts in all of Scripture to all followers of Christ down through the ages. For, even though the road is long, and the journey takes us through a dry and thirsty land, like the psalmist David, we too, have Jesus—The Great Shepherd—to Whom we can cry out, to refresh our parched souls.
Jesus said: (Revelation 21:6)
—God is Love, and Love Never Fails.
"All who are thirsty... all who are weak... come to the fountain... dip your heart in the stream of life. Let the pain and the sorrow... be washed away... in the waves of His mercy... as deep cries out to deep.
And we sing...
Come, Lord Jesus, come..."
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