My Soul Longs For You, Oh God.

One year, California, the state where I live, was experiencing one of the driest years on record. We had stores of water that allowed farmers to water their crops, and allowed us to still have running water in our homes — things that help us ignore the drought and satisfy the thirst around us even though there’s been no rain. 

But the lack of water could still be felt and seen…we could see all across California land that should be green was just a withered brown. The land cried for water!  

Have you ever been in a spiritual drought? A place of numbness, a lack of clarity or direction, a weariness, a hunger, a hope that there’s something more?

Sometimes it’s a slow recognition of thirst, and sometimes it’s a recognition of thirst beginning to fade. The spiritual drought really is just a place of emptiness, a feeling of being lost in a desert.

Of needing something you’ve not had for quite a while.

Whether it’s a natural or spiritual drought, our God is the God of the rain.

You care for the land and water it; You enrich it abundantly. (Ps 65:9) 

You gave abundant showers, O God; You refreshed Your weary inheritance. (Ps 68:9)

He covers the sky with clouds; He supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. (Ps 147:8)

For I will pour water upon him who is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring, and My blessing upon your descendants. (Isaiah 44:3)

My Soul Longs for God

God’s heart for us, as individuals and collectively as cities and a state, is that we would turn our hearts to Him, to ask for His rain, to admit our thirst, our need, and surrender the things we have tried to fill up on instead of Him. He longs to send the rain, to refresh, restore, and heal.

And all that we must do is ask. My soul longs for God.

Let’s Pray

Jesus, the need is great.  The need in my own parched heart.  The need of this parched land. My soul longs for You, Oh, God.

You promise to care for the land, so I’m asking You to do what You promised. You promise to be the Living Water for my soul, and I’m surrendering my all to You, asking You to be the water that brings me Life.

Nothing else can satisfy. Nothing but You, the God of the rain, can satisfy. I’ll wait here, in this desert, waiting on Your voice to shake this place, to bring the deluge, to draw my heart in tenderness towards you. (Ps 29:8-10)