I hardly remember rain.

These autumn days have been beautiful and bright and almost always sunny. The sound of gently falling rain exists but only in far away memory. We’ve been living and moving on and enjoying the bright without realizing how dry it really is, how much we need rain.

This weekend there are fires raging in the mountains near us. Fires devouring miles of beauty and threatening more. Fires that started with a spark but quickly grew because of dry and thirsty ground. Ground that is thirsty for rain.

Sometimes my soul is dry.

Some days I am just living and moving on until a spark of doubt, a flash of anger, or a moment of fear reminds me that I am thirsty. I am thirsty for a drink of cool water. I am thirsty for a drink from the well that never runs dry.

Dryness of soul is different than anger or sadness or fear. It is different than unbelief. It happens slowly over time and can easily go unnoticed. We can be so busy and so distracted that we don’t notice how thirsty we really are.

I love God’s words. I love to come thirsty and drink the sweet water. I love the picture of Christ as living water. I love the promise that we will be fruitful even in the desert, that we will find water in the wilderness.

I love the abundant, always available, thirst-quenching stream.

He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused water to flow down like rivers. Psalm 78:15-16

Whoever drinks of the water that I give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. John 4:14

He turns deserts into a pool of water, a parched land into springs of water. Psalm 107:35

For I will pour water upon him who is thirsty. Isaiah 44:3