Cross thoughts: Christian ideas seen in Sudanese life everyday.
Drought sometimes comes into the heart and soul of a person, as well as to the land of our country! Rivers, like this White Nile, fall before they rise again. Their levels reflect the seasonal rainfall (or the lack of it) miles away, unseen, higher upstream.
God promises to send a physical drought as a judgement when His people disobey Him, (see Deuteronomy 28:22). A spiritual drought develops quickly in the inner life of any Christian who neglects to keep their regular personal time with God. This is the heart of disobedience in a love relationship.
God is disappointed every day we do not keep our appointment with Him. He misses us! So He reminds us of our absence by withholding the refreshing flow of His life-sustaining spiritual water into our lives. We soon become dry and barren.
In quiet moments we may honestly recognise that our Christian walk is not what it once used to be. Our joy has become only hollow laughter. Our peace is only thanks to our deafness to reality. Our service is found in too much human doing – we dare not “Be still, and know that God is God”, Psalm 46:10.
Every thriving tree we walk past in daily life is a God-given visual aid of what our Christian lives should be like.
A Christian who is living with the cross of Christ central to his or her daily routine is: “Like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit”, Jeremiah 17:8.
February 2009.