Achsah, the daughter of Caleb was not happy with the dry land in the south (called Negeb), allotted to her, despite the fact that she had  entered a happy marriage with a hero.  So she pleaded with her father, “Give me also springs of water” and that was given to her.  (Jos. 15:19)

Are we in spite of outward, material happiness living spiritually in a dry land too?  Then Achsah´s prayer should also be ours.   The psalmist cries, “Bring back our captivity, o Lord, as the streams in the South.”  Ps. 126:4.  The words suggest that the many dry brooks in the parched south will shortly be filled  with rainy showers from Heaven, and such spiritual showers the Lord will be pleased to bestow on our dried up lives also when we earnestly seek Him for it.

A godly woman (now with the Lord) often told me of her conversion as a very young girl.  She also told me how she soon went through a period of “dry land” with preaching and teaching and also legalism without “living water”.  She was then, still very young, employed with my grandfather´s house as one the house maids.  It was a house with “springs of water” and to be part of a fellowship there where godly people gathered to be spiritually edified and refreshed was the oasis she was thirsting for.

(That woman later in her old days meant a lot to my own spiritual life.  “Springs of water” gushed from her godly life.)

A man said to a Christian of good standing,  “I like to visit you, as I´ve been told that “living waters” are running in your house.”  O, homes with “springs of water” are much more called for than imposing church buildings, packed with platform numbers, eloquence turning on the charm, jokes, high pressure appeals, etc.  Many church goers hate to hear that, but isn´t it true?

What Achsah of old is saying to us is in all its simplicity, “If you are in a personal Negeb desert, don´t be satisfied with that.  Pray for “springs of water”!

April 18, 2014 – jn