You’re restless. You can’t sit still. You have a nagging task you can’t identify. You’re looking for something unknown. But the land is arid and the country is a wilderness. Then after a while, unexpectedly, the first sign of relief appears. You run towards it like you would a spring in the desert. You drink deeply. And …

1. You’re satisfied. You feel refreshed. You’re at peace. Hope surges in your heart. Purposeful energy returns and  restlessness disappears. The day goes on. You’re content.

OR

2. You remain dissatisfied. What you discovered was a mirage. You continue your fruitless search. The day goes on. You feel drained … and restless.

In his Confessions, Augustine wrote, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Yet even those who have found Christ feel restless at certain times, and these times lead us to a salutary discovery.

“No one knows what he himself is made of, except his own spirit within him, yet there is still some part of him which remains hidden even from his own spirit; but you, Lord, know everything about a human being because you have made him… Let me, then, confess what I know about myself, and confess too what I do not know, because what I know of myself I know only because you shed light on me, and what I do not know I shall remain ignorant about until my darkness becomes like bright noon before your face.”

Augustine, Confessions

So where is it that I find enlightenment for the pressing needs of my spirit? I am in the dark trapped in my own limitations until my Lord speaks into that chaos & darkness, “Let there be light!” But where does He speak to me?

Indeed, where is God’s silence broken but in Scripture? Every day as I come as a humble supplicant, He speaks through it anew and as if it were tailor-made for me. Just me. Though ancient and meditated upon by generations gone by, God’s word opens like a spring in the desert where I am, to speak to me what I alone in the solitude of my spirit need to hear.

So run to His word. This is no mirage. We need His Word every day, and “the wilderness and the desert will be glad” (Is. 35:1 NASB).

Daily Prompt: Arid