Writing from Mount Dry

Dry.

This describes fairly accurately how I have felt these last couple of weeks. 

Dry.

My hands feel dry and cracked from winter air.
   My throat feels dry due to cold season being  in full force.
      My face feels dry from lack of fresh air. 

And my mind and heart feel a bit dry too… a sense of writer’s (blogger's?!?) block and associated discouragement. 

Dry.  Parched. 
  And a sense of desperation for some sort of refreshment. 

I am not sure if it’s the fact that I miss the sun or fresh air, or maybe I’m feeling the winter blahs more than usual, but I’ve been trying to write this blog for almost 3 weeks now and every time I've tried, I come up completely – you guessed it – dry.

And so what’s the only thing I could think to write about?  Right again – "Dry."

But I'm not going to write about just any type of dry.  I want to talk about Mount Dry.   

It's a real place.  I visited Mount Dry in the Egyptian wilderness  -- and yes, it was a real biblical place as well.  

You may know it as “Mount Horeb.”  But directly translated, it literally means, “Mt. Dry.” 

So as I sit here with no idea what to write, feeling mentally parched each time I try, I see in my notes something significant about “Mt. Dry.”  It was at Mt Dry – Mt. Horeb – that God reminded the Israelite people that he was there to take care of their every need, and to take away their parchedness, offering refreshment.  It was at Mt. Dry, God gave them water from a rock. 

In Exodus 17, the Israelite people had hardly been out of Egypt for long, and they were complaining about their thirst, and how clearly, Moses had just brought them out of Egypt to die in this desert.  (Having spent just some minimal time in this Egyptian wilderness, I may have been one of the complainers myself, if not the chief complainant…)

These people had just been brought through the Red Sea on dry land.  They had just witnessed their Egyptian pursuers be annihilated.  They had just been fed manna and quail --  literally food from heaven.  And yet they were complaining about their thirst and how they must have come out here to die.  After all this, they still asked  if God was really with them?

And so rather than reprimanding these chronic complainers and leaving them in the desert to fend for themselves, God yet again proves himself worthy and provides.

He provides water.
  Relief.
     Refreshment.
And from all places, the water comes from "Horeb" - dry. The water comes from a lifeless rock on Mt. Dry.

God is proving yet again how he watches over and provides for his people.  God is offering a lifespring of physical and spiritual nourishment, showing his people that even in the wilderness, even on a place called Mt. Dry, he can cause a wellspring that can quench thirst.  That he is life-giving rock in a weary land...


Perhaps you find yourself in a similar spot as these Israelites were. Dry.  Parched.  Needing some serious refreshment.  Maybe you feel a bit like me, feeling the mid-winter blahs...  

Or maybe you are having a personal or spiritual dry spell, wondering just like the Israelites did in this story, “Is God really with us?  Is God really there for me?” (Exodus 17:7)  Why is he leaving me to wither in this dry land?  Why does it seem God doesn't care for me?

If this is you, or maybe this has been part of your path in the past, let this be your encouragement:  the God of the universe cares for you so deeply, that he is able to quench your thirst, even on Mt. Dry.  The God of this universe loves you so much that he would produce for you water out of a lifeless rock. 

If you are feeling dry today, and you have been praying or hoping for refreshment from God, allow these words to sink in and drink deeply from God’s wellspring of life…

  “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 
   Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:37-38)