Leaving the Wasteland

"For I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun!  Do you not see it?  I will make a pathway through the wilderness.  I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."  (Isaiah 43:19, NLT)

At times we all look at our lives and see nothing but a dessert.  There doesn't seem to be any life any where.  Perhaps you are in a desert right now.

• You feel stuck in a career that's going nowhere.  
• You've been unemployed for a while and all you keep getting are dead ends as you search for a job.
• Your marriage seems dead.  A relationship that was once vibrant and alive has dried up and you wonder why you are even staying together.
• The town you live in is just dead.  There doesn't seem to be any life in it at all.  Every day you see the same old people doing the same old things.
• Your church seems to be just going through the motions.

When we find ourselves in the desert, we are tempted to jump ship.  Our solution for a boring, going-no-where job is to find another one.  If a marriage is dead, many simply trade in their current spouse for another one.  If our church isn't all we think it could be, we jump to yet another one.  Other people just settle.  They accept the desert as their lot in life and suffer through the hot, scorching, arid atmosphere of a life going no where fast.

We need to understand that in the midst of our desert experiences, God is already working.  He is working, on our behalf right now to turn the desert places into an oasis.  If we try to handle it our way, we will most likely find ourselves walking in circles through the desert, just like the Hebrews did with Moses for 40 years.  We change jobs, but stay in the desert.  We trade spouses, but still we are in the desert.  We hop from church to church and find the same desert in every one of them.

Jesus promised to be living water to all who trust Him.  "Anyone who is thirsty may come to me!  Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.'" (John 7:37-38)

As you look to Jesus and find him in the desert places of our lives, we experience his powerful ability to take what was dry and dead and bring it to life.  He is at work right now in you and in your surroundings.  He is preparing you for something new and fresh.  Look to him and stand in faith.  There is a river flowing right where you are!