You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.

We all go through dry and parched places. From time to time, we all go through challenges and questions about the direction we are taking in life. Call them tests, call them temptations—they take us to the limits of our faith and steadfastness. Although God is always leading and guiding us, from time to time we have difficulty following. Why here? Why now? Why the desert?

When we go through times like that we long for more of God. We long for His divine sustenance, provision, help, and direction. Everything within us longs for God. Like thirsty travelers wandering in the desert, we long for water, we long to “draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). There are other wells that we could draw from in the midst of our trials in the desert, but we know that they are only the fetid and noxious waters of false gods. We know that drinking from that water will never truly satisfy our thirst.

So, we wait until we can find the good stuff. We wait until we can find the well that will save us and not poison us. God is our God, and no one else; therefore, we seek Him alone, earnestly and with diligence.

When David wrote the words of our verse for today, he was in the wilderness of Judah. That is, he was literally in a dry and parched land. David’s literal experience, however, is a symbol for any place in our lives where that which we need from God is lacking. No doubt there were times when David must have wondered why he was where he was. He was the anointed of God. He was destined to be a king. Why, then, the wilderness?

There is, however, an end to the desert. There was for David. At the end are the wells of salvation. There you will find what you have been searching for and longing for.

By John Huisman