Dries up

“rejoicing dries up from the sons of men.”  Joel 1:12

Dries up – Yesterday I received a newsletter on the plight of people in Haiti.  It began with this verse from Joel.  Today the newspaper headlines carried the story of more killing and turmoil in that country.  A few weeks ago I wrote about Cite Soleil, the home of 500,000 people living in abject poverty.  Now their already terrible lives seem to be getting worse.  What happens to people when hope dries up?

It’s not difficult to imagine the mental picture behind this Hebrew word (yavash).  You can think of the parched desert, the bones of dead cattle, the cracked ground.  When the vital moisture of life is removed, even the land dies.  The prophet Ezekiel used this image to talk about God’s restoration of life.  But the image of parched land and withered vegetation has some profound theological meanings in the Bible.  Ralph Alexander suggests that this word communicates images of important acts of God (like crossing the Red Sea).  It also shows us something about God’s character.  He is the all-powerful God who can cause the earth to be plentiful or parched.  This word shows us something of God’s judgment too.  Those who disobey God are dried up or withered away, even if they are great kingdoms on earth.  Finally, the images of this word point to our complete dependence on God for those basic needs of life.  It takes only drought to remind us that we are not in control of this world.  Life depends on God’s grace.

The prophet Joel proclaims that men who turn their backs on God will soon discover that the joy of living has become a parched desert of meaninglessness.  Without God, life is just dust blown in the wind.  When I stood on the edge of the Sahara desert and saw the vast reaches of nothing but sand, shifting like a giant snake, I could only drop to my knees and thank God for His grace in my life.  Without His care for me, my hope would just dry up.  I would become the “Wasteland” of T. S. Elliot’s poem.  I know what that feels like.  I lived many years in the desert, trying to find my own oasis.  One day Jesus met me wandering, dying of thirst.  He said to me, “Let me give you living water.”  That was an invitation I understood completely. 

Today:  Water, the most common thing in life, will remind me that God’s grace is the reason I have not dried up.  I will thank Him with every drink.