An Oasis in the Desert

Yesterday, my wife and I arrived home from a four day excursion to Vancouver, where we attended the 2005 Pastors' Conference sponsored by Regent College. The conference theme was The Worshipping Life: Spirituality for the Desert and Other Tough Places and featured plenary speakers Roberta Hestenes and Robert Webber, along with workshop leaders Mark Davies, Donna Dinsmore, Edna Grenz and Bruce Hindmarsh.

The opening worship included the reading of a Psalm, from The Message, out of which one phrase caught my attention: Like great draughts of water poured down a parched throat. Indeed, the whole conference was as if the mercies of God were great draughts of water poured down a parched throat.

Now, I have had wonderful experiences before, where I went feeling very dry, gulped down great draughts of blessing, and left feeling rather greedy for more, and somewhat critical of the place my path went thereafter for not being more like what I had just experienced.

This time, however, I knew from the very beginning that these great draughts of refreshment were pure gift from God, to be enjoyed to the fullest now. For a few days I would be camped at the same oasis in the desert that the people of Israel camped at for a time. A place with twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees. But like them, I knew that the oasis was not home, but just a place to rest and prepare for the next phase of journey along the dry path ahead.

I will have other reflections to record that emanate from the retreat at the oasis, but one clear message I received came from the text of a song we repeated in four of the five worship events

We will take what you offer.
We will live by your Word.
We will love one another,
and be led by you, Lord.

For now, I am content to take whatever it is that God offers -- in terms of community life, in terms of corporate worship, in terms of opportunities for service -- and to be led by Him wherever the path ahead leads.