The Desert Will Blossom

In Egypt recently I was in a shop to buy some Bedouin Tea (delicious!). and I noticed a large glass jar with something sprouting inside. “What is it?” I asked, and the shopkeeper replied “It’s one of these,” and gave me a dried up branch of dead-looking twigs and shrivelled branches. It was an Anastica – a Rose of Jericho.

Now these plants, which are totally dehydrated, come back to life over 2-3 hours when immersed in water with growth and leaves with colour. This is as the prophet Isaiah said: “The desert and parched land will be glad. The wilderness will rejoice and blossom.”

We too can feel like a deserted and desert place. Despite everything good around us we are dry. Our thirst is not truly quenched by whatever we try. It’s like we have a dry hole inside us that’s never filled. The blossoming of true gladness never occurs.

We feed our minds and exercise our bodies, but our spirit remains untended and deserted. A God-shaped hole within us. Please allow this Spring the love and life-giving ‘water’ from God to reach you through Jesus. How? Well, it’s good to start by talking to people who know Jesus. They will be the channel of the peace you seek. The channel for the life-giving water. As Jesus mysteriously said, “the water I give you will mean you will never be thirsty again!”

He plants the regenerating plant in your heart. Try and see.