From Wilderness to Vineyard

".Our lives are like water that is poured out on the ground." (2 Samuel 14:14 TLB).In the healing Word of our Savior, the word water has different connotations.

In the grand book of Isaiah, we find the comforting waters that transform our grief into blossoms in God's garden: "Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert he desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom." (Isaiah 35:6,1). The Lamb Himself will lead us to springs of living water (Revelation 7:17). Surely apprehension and anguish make a parched land.Eventually we all find ourselves in a wilderness where our water is poured out on the ground but what a blessed promise: ".I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness, and speak kindly to her.

" (Hosea 2:14). Occasionally God allures us to the place of desolation and loneliness so He can speak to us in His quiet, and require us to understand what we have done to ourselves and to confide to us what He would like to do for us.God does not drive us, for He has given us the gift of choice, but He pleads with us to abandon harmful associations and habits. He prays for us (yes, He prays for us!) to immerse ourselves in His living waters that make us fresh and refreshing once again. There in the seeming barrenness of the wilderness He gives us vineyards and hope and a new song (Hosea 2:15).

Perhaps there is another idea in 2 Samuel 14:14 for us: we need to leave behind the spilled waters of our life, that which we perceive to be our failures. We can never gather the tears from the dust of our dreams; God has already gathered them in His bottle (Psalm 56:8). We can waste valuable time crying over the spilled waters of our life and lose the solace for our parched minds and hearts.

By: Patricia Nordman