Dry and Weary Land

Psalm 63:1

“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

I can see what David meant when he wrote this verse. My bible notes that he wrote this while in the Desert of Judah. As I look around us here in the Namib Desert I can somewhat identify. When you are left without food or water you cannot help but hunger and thirst. When you are in a desert the shear desolate nature of the land makes you long for water. It’s like looking at a picture of an icy and snowy landscape and feeling a chill in your spine. Or perhaps when perusing a picture of a white sandy beach you feel like cool breeze through your toes. When you stare out at the vast amounts of sand, and the mirages in the distant horizon teasing your senses to believe its fresh water…when you spend any time in a place without refuge and resource, you immediately start to feel the choke of panic in your bones.

Last Saturday, as we were on our way to explore more of the surrounding area, I stopped to take this picture

I thought I had safely parked on the edge of the road. Well, I pulled off further than I had realized, and the rear wheels of our vehicle began to sink in the sand. As I tried to pull out the wheels just dug deeper down. Now, here we were a family of 6, stuck in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, in the hot desert sun, with little to no cell phone reception. Man, I gotta say – I felt hot, thirsty, and tired all of a sudden. But more so, I felt lonely. There was no way I could have pushed that van out of the sand by myself, and there was no way to get it to drive anywhere. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing. Nothing. I wasn’t going anywhere.

There’s no better way to feel a desperate need for God than to be in that sort of position. Why do I mention this? Because, in that experience I learned – don’t complain about the dry and weary times in life, when you feel alone, tired, and completely without hope. There’s no better way to spark a deeper passion and dependence upon God. My faith grew in that instance. I had no choice. It was either God’s provisions, or nothing. I began praying in the Spirit… and there, over the hill, came a bus load of tourists. The bus stopped, the driver got out, and so did an “army” of men who pushed us out of the sand and back onto the road. Amazingly, that whole ordeal lasted maybe 20 minutes.

Later that morning we reached our destination - the seaside town of Walvis Bay. And there we saw some incredible scenes… and tons of water. Of course, it was saltwater – no way were we going to cure our thirst with it – but it was a refreshing scene.

(above: this is Walvis Bay. No other comment really needed)

(above: apparently a bird had a little trouble. Interesting thing is, this was in the sand during low tide that would normally have been covered up by the water.)

(above: this is our minivan. As you can see, we're ready to haul a ton of kids. Of course, don't miss the fact that Jessa is looking kinda cool here.)
(BTW - you'll note the nice background. There are certainly parts of the coast that are attractive to tourists and vacationers. Don't be fooled, as you literally cross the tracks in this area and you realize that most of the population here could never afford to enjoy this area.)

[Next entry I plan to share a bit more about what God is doing to position us for long-term ministry here.]