What comes to your mind when you think of the desert? Back in January, my wife and I were blessed to experience the Judean Wilderness first hand. It was amazing to see the Qumran community, Masada (one of Herod’s mountain fortresses) and the Dead Sea. But, wow, was it ever barren and dry there!
Usually, when I visualize the desert, the following things and images are conjured in my imagination: intense heat, endless sand dunes, surreal landscapes, mirages, carcasses, scant vegetation like cacti, camels, Bedouins living in tents, little water, venomous snakes, poisonous lizards, and death.
Although some people may consider deserts to be beautiful and mysterious places, those landscapes are dangerous deathtraps. As Christians, there are times it may feel like we’re stuck in and surrounded by a never-ending desert.
In our daily lives, we often encounter severe struggles, heavy stressors, and massive challenges that overwhelm us. They can sap us of our emotional and spiritual energy so we feel parched, discouraged, weak, and vulnerable.
But thankfully deserts are also known for something called “oases.” What is an oasis? While there are a number of possible definitions, generally speaking an oasis is a small fertile area in a desert region with a well or spring. It is a place of refuge and relief from the surrounding wasteland. There is shade, shelter, serenity, and water. David found oasis and refuge in the wilderness at En Gedi as he fled from King Saul.
A foreboding fear for tired, wind-blown, sunburnt travelers traversing any desert is that what seems like an oasis in the distance will actually turn out to be a mirage. It won’t be real. It will be something that offers false hope.
Spiritually, the world around us is desolate, dry, and dead. It lacks the life of God due to the pervasiveness and perverseness of sin. There is a great need for an oasis.
Isaiah 32:1-2 (ESV) prophesies, “Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.” Jesus is the promised king who brings protection and relief. A spiritual oasis is wherever God is present.
Another uplifting scripture is Matthew 5:6 (ESV), when Jesus promises in the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
During his earthly ministry, a person whom Jesus deeply impacted was the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. She came in the heat of the day to draw water, likely because she was avoiding the judgmental stares and hurtful whispers of the other women. Taken aback by the fact that a Jewish man was talking to her, she received the offer of a lifetime. Jesus said he could give her “living water.”
In John 4:13-15 (ESV), he went on to say, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Misunderstanding his intended meaning at first, the woman said, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water” (verse 15). But the Lord went on to clarify his spiritual truth.
Jesus was not a mirage but an oasis in this woman's life. He permanently changed her perspective and revived her weary soul. She needed hope—something to hold onto. We do too.
Water is supplied to an oasis through underground streams that can secretly travel for hundreds of miles. For believers, when life's trials come (and they will), there is a hidden supply of living water that is not visible to others.
Isaiah 58:11 (ESV) says, “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
Maybe at this time in your life, you cannot imagine being like a well-watered garden. But through God’s love and limitless power, all things are possible.
Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911) once wrote, “I do not mean that there will be no more outward trouble, or care, or suffering; but these very places will become green pastures and still waters inwardly to the soul.”
However, it is essential that we get connected and stay connected to the never-ending water source—to God Himself.
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