Some of our Royal Rangers just got back from winter camp, and they got their money’s worth, so to speak. It was COLD! Some of them, including our own Jeremy Birkey, had to spend a night outdoors in an improvised shelter. It brought back memories of when I had to do that at Winter Operations Instructors’ Course the Guard sent me to many moons ago.
We spent hours sawing and chopping wood for shelter and for fire. The temperature—not the wind chill, the temperature—was 20 below zero. What we found was that we could remove a lot of our cold weather gear while we were working. It was the kind of wood, I was told, that “warms you twice; once when you cut it, once when you burn it.” The thing that stunned me, though, was that the second we stopped sawing or chopping, we immediately had to get our gear back on. The cold overtook us that quickly; there was no “cool-down period”. We had to take deliberate steps to preserve the heat we had generated.
Sometimes weather is more agreeable. Sometimes it is overtly threatening, in the form of tornadoes, lightning and the like. Sometimes it is simply cold enough to kill if we don’t protect ourselves. Deadly weather is not necessarily violent weather.
The word of God talks about dry places. David talks about longing for God in a dry and thirsty land. Jesus said when an impure spirit comes out of a man, it goes looking through the dry places for rest.
The Word also uses water as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit and for the Word itself. Ephesians talks about Christ making the church holy, cleansing her “with the washing of water by the Word.” Jesus said “now you are clean by the word I have spoken to you.” Corinthians talks about “drinking of one Spirit.”
The point is this: if we are spiritually dry, we are exposing ourselves to danger.
It is not the kind of blatant attack we think we are prepared for, but a subtle “wasting away” of our passion for God, His church, and His Word. Just as a lion will target the weakest animal to prey upon, the enemy of our souls goes about like a roaring lion, seeking the spiritually dry, looking for ways to steal from us, kill us, destroy us.
We might feel a little more alert and ready for something like open persecution, or an argument against our faith. We might believe we will never succumb to a frontal assault by the enemy, just as we have the good sense to close our doors and lay in supplies for a winter storm. But we are fooled by the slow moving danger of dehydration. As anyone who has been working or training in a hot environment knows, by the time you feel thirsty, you are already in danger. Then the thirst itself starts to wane.
The best way to stay spiritually healthy is to stay spiritually hydrated, and we must continue to cultivate a thirst and hunger for the word of God and for fellowship with the body of Christ. Our spiritual warfare is ultimately a lifestyle, not an event. As we reflect on the season of fasting we just completed, I encourage you to continue in the habit of meditating daily on the Psalms in addition to whatever other Bible reading you and your family are doing. This local body, like the body of Christ at large, will be healthier and more effective if every PART of the body is strong, healthy, and hydrated. Stay thirsty, my friends.
Blessings,
