Rain in the Desert
By Linda Rex
I remember a brief visit to the Arizona desert. The setting sun was painting the sky with brilliant colors. The saguaros and Joshua trees were silhouetted against it, and the air was crisp and dry. The desert was beautiful, but it was dry and parched. The only thing that would have made it even more beautiful, that would have made really it come alive, would have been rain.
Sometimes, like the desert, we may feel dry and parched. We feel an inner emptiness that nags at us that we really can’t quite put our finger on. We try to avoid dealing with it, so we cram ourselves and our lives full of all kinds of stuff, none of which truly fills that emptiness. Our life may have a stunning beauty and be full of all kinds of stuff, but nothing quite takes away that nagging feeling of thirst.
The sad thing is that we can be doing all kinds of things for God, and still feel this way. This is because we have forgotten who we are and what we were created for. We weren’t created to do things for God, but to do all things with God.
Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it and to be fruitful. And God walked with them in the garden—sharing life with them as they went along. God did not just put them in the garden and then walk away and say, “Take care of it. It’s all up to you now. You’ve got to get it right or else.”
But he did give them a choice—the same choice he gives us. A choice between life on our own—choosing for ourselves what is good and evil—or true life, life in communion with him forever, trusting him in every situation. Even when Adam and Eve made the wrong choice, God intervened and promised them that evil would not have the last word. Their failure was not the end of the story. It was redeemed in Christ.
Because Christ took on our human flesh and lived, died and rose from the grave in union with us, all of life is a participation in God’s Triune life and love. We can try to live life as though we are here on earth all by ourselves, tackling everything ourselves on our own. (Our track record with that hasn’t been the greatest.) Or we can live life in an intimate relationship with God moment by moment through Christ in the Spirit.
Through Christ God sent his Spirit so that we could share in his life. We are free to ignore the tree of life, the Spirit, if we wish and continue to hide away from God. Worse yet, we can declare ourselves aligned with God and with Christ as our Savior, and yet live as though it’s all up to us. Either way we end up making demands on other people that they cannot fill. And we live with an inner dryness that we try to stuff with all kinds of things that are never quite enough to fill the emptiness.
Instead we can choose to live our lives as a participation in Christ’s life, believing that all of life is taken up in Christ. Whatever we are doing at the moment, we are doing in union with Christ and as we are walking in the Spirit, we are doing in communion with God in Christ. This is the perichoretic life of the Father, Son and Spirit—making room for one another. God has made room for us in his life. We make room for God in ours. We make room for others in ours as well. We live gratefully in God’s true freedom based in love in a warm, loving relationship with God and each other.
This means that we live, moment by moment, with an awareness of God’s presence. We begin to tune into the presence and power of God’s Spirit. We make some effort to listen to the Word of God and the promptings of his Spirit. We begin to make room for God in our hearts, our minds and our lives.
Every act of life, no matter how trivial, is not an unusual thing for God—he is not surprised. He already knows all about us. He knows us intimately. Nothing is hidden from him, no matter how good we are at hiding it.
He wants to share all of life with us, just as we would with a best friend, a lover, a brother or sister. God wants to do all of life with us, not just the parts we get right. That’s why he gives us his unconditional love and acceptance—his grace. And he loves us so much that he’s not going to leave us where we are—he’s going to grow us up to reflect the perfect image of himself, Jesus Christ. He’s going to work to heal us and make us whole. He’s going to transform us.
When we feel that nagging inner thirst, we need to ask ourselves—am I doing life on my own again? Where’s God in all this? Who is God for me in this moment, in this situation? Am I doing life for God or for myself? Or am I doing life with God—together with him in joyful companionship and friendship?
Whenever we find ourselves in that dry spot where we’ve started going the wrong direction, all God asks of us is to turn around. He beckons to us, “Come—join me in my life and my work! Share life with me! You don’t need to do this all by yourself.” And he runs down the road to meet us and embrace us. Because he’s always expectantly looking for us to join him. Let’s not keep him waiting.
Holy God, thank you so much that we don’t have to do life all on our own. Thank you for your real, intimate presence with us and in us by your Holy Spirit. Forgive us our tendency to live life our way on our own without you. Grant us the grace to make room for you in our lives, our hearts and minds, and to live each moment in an intimate relationship with you. Fill our thirsty souls with your real presence—we long for you. We’ve lived too long in this desert place without you. We praise and thank you for your faithful love in Jesus. Amen.
“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8-9 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 