Drinking It In

Thanksgiving Gratitude Edition

Guest Writer - Kathy Legg

Land that drinks in rain often falling on it and produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. Hebrews 6:7

I live in a semi-arid zone, where rain does not often fall. And when it does the hard dry clay soil may not be well able to drink it in! It pools and puddles on the surface, or runs off in rivulets.

Baca - You Can't Skirt This Valley

Life is a journey. For some it's an exciting adventure, for others a plodding task, lonely and futile. For people of faith like the singer of Psalm 84, life is a pilgrimage, a journey towards God.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty ...

My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God (v2).

The singer yearns to be in God’s presence and can’t wait to arrive at her destination, but her song is about the journey itself – the rigors and rewards of the road.

Learning to Trust - or Distrust God

At the end of forty years, God told Moses that the years of Israel’s deprivation in the desert had had a purpose. 'My design', God said, was ‘to humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart” Deuteronomy 8:2. 'As a father disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you’ (v.5) ‘to do you good in the end’ (v.16).

Hunger and thirst are powerful tests – and God wanted Israel to internalize deep in their consciousness a conviction that they could trust their covenant Partner. Experiencing God’s provision of water and food in God's time would lay a foundation of trust in other areas of life. But Israel never seemed to pass the trust-test. They were habitual whiners, constantly grumbling against God, testing God’s patience.