Glimmering

This morning in the midst of some devotional time, I came across some words that glimmered.  When something glimmers, it catches your attention.  It seems to shine with a light all its own.  It calls for attention.  We all see the glimmering stuff in what we read as well as in what we see around us throughout the day.  Today's glimmering words were, "See yourself as the parched ground looking upward waiting patiently for the rain to fall.  You can only wait."  ('Lost in Wonder" by Esther de Waal)  The glimmering words came in a section on centering prayer and they have been carried with me all day.     

Certainly, one of the reasons these words glimmered so brightly has to do with the fact that the weather in these days has been extremely hot and very dry.  It is as if the earth is like a nest of young birds with mouths open waiting for their mother to fly back to the nest to fill their mouths.  Many have been the times in recent days when my shirt was drenched in sweat and my body beaten down from the heat that I have looked in the sky searching for some sign of the renewing rain needed by the parched earth and worn out people who walk and work on it.   

The image set forth by the writer was easy enough to imagine.  It was easy enough to find myself sitting with an understanding of how it is that we need to wait on God.  We are to wait as if life depends on Him, but trusting in Him to provide what is needed in His time.  We are to learn what it means to wait on Him even though every part of us longs for the blessing which we sense that is necessary for our life.  The image reminds me there is nothing to do but wait which is always a hard discipline for us.  As the parched earth longs for rain, so is there a desperate longing in our soul.