All you Need.

Nairobi is experiencing an unusually hot and dry season, where the wind is blowing the dusty streets, heaping layers of dirt onto furniture and floors.  As a result many people's lungs have been dry and agitated and there has been a lot of coughing, myself included.  Nairobi, temporarily is a desert.

As I was coughing away while preparing supper, God reminded me of times of dry seasons in my life; times when I lacked many things.

There are times in our lives when God allows a dry season of deprivation and/or loss. In my experience, these seasons often come one after another.

They can involve a lack of material resources, a loss of health or a loved one.  And simultaneously  they often entail the absence of community and periods of loneliness.

Some people have compared these times to being in a desert.  Have you ever visited a desert in it's driest season?  The heat bearing down on you is merciless and it is agonizing because you can not hide from the sun.  The dryness in your throat causes it to ache and you cough and heave. Sand gets in your eyes, your ears, and even grits between your teeth.

The ancient Israelites knew this kind of suffering. They lived in the desert for 40 years.  They experienced thirst so bad that they almost stoned their leader, Moses, to death!  They went without meat and longed for rich foods again. They knew deprivation.

But it was in the desert, God was far more interested in drawing the Israelites into a deep and lasting covenant relationship with Himself.

Moses records, "He (God) humbled you, causing you to hunger and feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." (Duet 8:3)

I have grown up often hearing, "Jesus is not all that you need until He is all that you've got." In other words, we don't realize that everything we ever needed was in Christ  until we loose everything else.

God will take us through times of deprivation and of loss, to strip us of all extemporaneousness and superficial dependencies, so that our only source of life is in Christ.

The Apostle Paul also knew deprivation.

And yet, it was in those times, He learned to depend on His God. (2 Cor 1:8-9) In fact, Christ became so important to him that he later declared, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord..." (Phil 3:8)

My dear brother and my dear sister, do not loose heart if you find yourself in the desert place.  You are there by Sovereign design.  You have not been forsaken, you have not been left to despair.

It is there Christ wants to lead you to such an intimacy with Him that you discover the wellspring of your soul is in Him and that you will never thirst again! Everything you ever needed in life is in one person, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is all that you need.