Devotional:

Psalm 63.1-8

O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 

After preaching and leading worship for what felt like 4 of the more challenging weeks in my life, a youth from the church approached me after the service on Sunday. In his eyes I saw a the beginnings  of a question and I mentally prepared myself to respond. I have attempted to be as clear as possible about the situation the UMC finds itself in, and I have tried to preach faithfully in the midst of it, but the look on the young man’s face left me worried that I had been anything but clear.

Before he opened his mouth I said, “I can tell that you’ve got a question brewing. What is it?” 

He stared blankly at my face for a moment and then said, “Is there anything you wish you hadn’t packed in your bag when you went hiking at Philmont?”

I, constantly over thinking everything, made an assumption that he wanted to know more about the denomination’s stance on human sexuality, or where the UMC is heading, but what he really wanted was some advice as he prepares to journey to Philmont this summer with his Boy Scout Troop.

When I was the same as as the young man I was fortunate enough to travel to the Boy Scout ranch in northern New Mexico for what was one of the most formative experiences in my life. So, recalling those ten days and 102 miles, I told him about cutting down on unnecessary clothing, spreading communal gear across the whole crew, and making sure that he has enough bottles for enough water.

And ever since Sunday afternoon, I’ve been thinking about that last item a lot. And, to be honest, it has been a long time since I’ve given a lot of thought to the most basic and important element of our survival: water.

I can remember hiking out at Philmont nearly 15 years ago and not having enough water on a particularly brutal day. We started rationing it among the group as much as we could but at some point we ran out and we began panicking. With every mile we passed another dry creek bed and our lips continued to crack.

However, when we finally made it to the next campsite that afternoon, there were arrows pointing to a fresh spring that was producing water. It was hot and it was brackish, but it was the most delicious water I’ve ever tasted in my life!

The psalmist writes, “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” The desire to know God and to feel God’s presence is likened to wandering around a dry land looking for water. And yet, how often do we long for God in that kind of way? Many of us make our way to church on Sunday mornings hoping for something, even yearning for something, but would we describe it like the thirst while looking for a spring in the midst of a drought?

Or perhaps the metaphor works differently. Maybe it’s not so much about our desire to be filled like a flowing stream, but the refined rarity of actually finding it. 

Today, many of us take for granted what has been made available to us in the person of Jesus Christ. We go about our Christian lives without having to think much about what we are doing. We enter church and see the cross but it doesn’t stand out to us in the stark way that it should. 

And yet, like water, without the cross and without Jesus we are nothing.