Place of Springs
I have learned, that more than any other place, the desert is a place of springs, and it is the place the Father teaches us to sing despite the apparent barrenness of our surroundings.
Singing is the occupation of a free heart, or at least one on the way to freedom. I am always amazed when in my travels I hear brothers and sisters who are materially quite poor, singing from their bellies, tapping into resources of greater value than money.
Living for more than two years in the desert changed me deep, and it took me deep, in search of hidden springs below the surface.
On the edge of a warzone where the collective weight of pain & suffering can tend to fill the air much like the every present dust, abundant living is an impossible task if all your resources are dried up on the surface. You have to dig deep for the wells, the hidden resources.
But wells there are, ancient springs in the land where the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove, and hasn’t left since, as a good friend likes to say.
“In the days of desert dryness he split open the mighty rock, and the waters flowed like a river before their very eyes. He gave them all they wanted to drink from his living springs.”
“But he also can turn a barren wilderness into an oasis with water! He can make springs flow into desert lands”
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose and the autumn crocus...Then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”
“Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
“So, John answered them, “I am fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy: ‘I am an urgent, thundering voice shouting in the desert—clear the way and prepare your hearts for the coming of the Lord Yahweh!’””
“And when forty years had gone by, there appeared to him in the wilderness (desert) of Mount Sinai an angel, in the flame of a burning bramblebush.”