Ruach Breath Of Life

We love it when the water of life is flowing freely through us,’ when praise flows and prayer is just a sheer joy. But how do we cope when, for either a short or a long time, our ‘water levels’ seem to recede and, like David, we find ourselves in a dry and waterless place; when seeking the Lord feels dull, and our circumstances so cramping and constricting that it feels as though all the life is being squeezed out of us. At times like these, we are more aware of the Lord’s absence than His presence, and even the thought of finding our joy in the Lord, and ‘riding in triumph on the heights of the land,’ as Isaiah puts it, seems a remote prospect. (cf Is. 58:14) In this waterless wilderness, a place of inner strife as well as outward hunger, thirsty and exhausted, David reached out beyond his own plight and deliberately ‘hooked’ himself into the Lord’s goodness by meditating on Him and clinging to Him, remembering all the help He had sent from His sanctuary. When we choose praise over despair, our worship b