A Dry And Weary Land (by Thom)

Psalm 63 is such a well-known chapter, but recently the words have taken on new meaning for Amanda and me. Here are the first 3 verses to Psalm 63: ¹O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. ²Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. ³Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You. (NASB)

Since returning from our trip to Dakar, Senegal, I’ve been forced to think a lot about dry lands and how Christ is the living water. With two brief exceptions, we haven’t had any rain in Mali since October. This is normal, but not too pleasant. The Niger River, which flows through the heart of Bamako, has lost a lot of water. In fact, there is about 150 yards of extra dry ground on either side now. Until recently, though, this hasn’t affected us much. This week has been a different story, though. Upon returning home, we noticed there was no water in the tank. Normally, we only get city water during the night, so we fill the tank up each night for use during the day. Unfortunately, we haven’t been getting enough water at night to even fill the tank. That means no water during the day. It also means we need to get up early enough to use the city water if we want a shower. The last couple of days we haven’t even had a bit of water at night.

And yet, we don’t have it too bad. We have a well on our property, so we can pump up water to wash clothes (yes, by hand), wash dishes, take a “bucket bath”, and flush. We have the money to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking. My heart goes out to the people who don’t have these options. One of the interesting things in this part of the world is the door-to-door water salesmen. Often, you will see kids with a donkey cart and a couple of large, yellow containers on top. These are full of water. We have had to buy this water once! There is no doubting Mali is a dry land. More than the literal meaning, though, is the spiritual dryness. We live in a land that is less than 2 % Christian. The Church is alive and well, if small, and they have found true satisfaction. If you read on in Psalm 63, you see it’s a Psalm of finding satisfaction in God. From Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary: Even in affliction we need not want matter for praise. When this is the regular frame of a believer's mind, he values the loving-kindness of God more than life. God's loving-kindness is our spiritual life, and that is better than temporal life. We must praise God with joyful lips; we must address ourselves to the duties of religion with cheerfulness, and speak forth the praises of God from a principle of holy joy. Praising lips must be joyful lips.

Please pray for Mali. Pray for the physical needs: water, food, shelter. Please also pray for the spiritual needs of the church and those who are not yet believers. In this dry and weary land, Lord, we ask for people to know the satisfaction that comes from a life full of You.

UPDATE: Thanks to all who prayed for our water situation. After nearly two weeks of little to no water, it has come back! We're really enjoying the showers!