Month: August 2022

Water of Life

On By Michele Huey, Author & SpeakerIn Christian living, faithLeave a comment

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. — Psalm 42:1–2 NIV 

After three trips to Colorado Springs, elevation 6,035 feet above sea level, I learned to drink a lot of water. 

The first time I went in the winter, and the air was dryer than at other times of the year. My eyes burned for the entire writers’ conference. Just walking from my classroom to an editor’s appointment left me gasping for breath. Now when I’m in Colorado Springs, I carry eye drops, pace myself when walking, and drink at least sixty-four ounces of water a day. 

Sixty-four ounces is a lot of water, you say. At that altitude, the air is thin and dry. Thin, meaning less oxygen than I’m used to breathing here at home in Smithport, Pennsylvania, elevation about 1,800 feet. So to get the oxygen I need, I’m taking more breaths. 

The higher altitude also means lower air pressure, which causes moisture to be snatched away from my skin and sucked from my lungs with each breath faster than here at home. And since Colorado Springs ranks thirty-third in the top 101 U.S. cities with the lowest average humidity—at 51.9 percent—I’m not getting a whole lot of moisture in the air I breathe. 

At six thousand feet above sea level, a person exhales and perspires twice as much as at sea level. This can make a difference of a quart or more of water a day. Whether or not I realize it, when I’m in Colorado Springs, I’m breathing more, perspiring more, and losing more body water. And if I don’t drink enough water, I’m going to get dehydrated. 

The funny thing about dehydration is that, unless you know the effects of high altitude on the body, you don’t even realize what’s happening and pass off the headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, and nausea as a bug or travel lag. Folks have been known to collapse and be rushed to the hospital, where they were back to normal after receiving much-needed water. 

Just as my body needs water, my soul needs God. 

Jesus illustrated our need for Him when He told the Samaritan woman at the village well, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:13—14).

When I take time to drink of the water He offers—by spending time talking to Him, listening to Him, and reading and meditating on His Word—my flagging, life-dried spirit is refreshed and revived. When I need rest, He leads me to green pastures and quiet waters. When trouble abounds, He’s right there with His rod and staff. When the way is dark and fearsome, He guides and comforts.

Are you spiritually dehydrated? There’s plenty of water to refresh and revive your soul. All you have to do is come. 

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you . . . in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1 NIV). Amen. 

MORE TEA: Read and reflect on Psalm 23 and John 4:6–14. 

*http://www.highaltitudelife.com/dehydration.htm

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea: 101 devotional readings to savor during your time with God © 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. 

Stuck in Smithport

On By Michele Huey, Author & SpeakerIn Christian livingLeave a comment

What is that in your hand? – Exodus 4:2 (NIV)

After a year and a half of filling the pulpit for a small, local congregation, I felt adrift and useless—that I’d lost my sense of purpose. It didn’t hit me all at once. My last Sunday with what I’d come to call “my little flock” was October 28. The next two months were filled with holiday happenings and a challenging writing course. 

Then the holidays were over and the schedule settled down. Snow swirled outside and the sun, along with my writing muse, disappeared for days on end. The weather was too inclement to walk outside and too unpredictable to plan shopping trips to town. Even my bi-weekly Bible study was postponed until spring. I felt stuck in Smithport. The only phone calls were my daughter’s weekly updates on Sunday evenings and requests: requests from the church’s prayer chain, requests to babysit the grandkids, and requests for milk, eggs, sugar, tomato paste, or whatever my sweet son and daughter-in-law didn’t have for the recipe they were making. By the time my husband, who worked 11-hours days, and I had supper, spent a little time together over tea and cleaned up the kitchen, not much was left of the evening or my energy. After my shower I watched NCIS reruns.

Reruns. That’s what my life felt like. Until God gave me a Gibbs-like smack on the head. 

I was reading Exodus 3 about when God called Moses from leading sheep to leading His people. Moses had spent 40 years in Midian on a quiet mountainside after 40 years as a prince of Egypt. Talk about feeling put on a shelf! 

“What is that in your hand?” God asked him. 

“A staff,” Moses replied.

“Throw it on the ground,” God told him.

And so he did, and it turned into a snake. When God told Moses to pick it up again, and he obeyed, it turned back into a shepherd’s staff. We all know the story: how Moses led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to the borders of the Promised Land. 

But Moses had to first acknowledge what he already had and then let God use it for His purpose.

“What is that in your hand?” God asks me.

And I think about all that my hands touch each day: food, dishes, laundry, a keyboard, writing lesson books, a vacuum cleaner, the phone, my grandchildren’s coats and shoes when they come for a visit, Scrabble tiles and jigsaw puzzle pieces, a pencil for a game of Boggle or Yahtzee!

And I realize I can’t see the trees for the forest. I’m too busy searching “out there” in the big, wide world for my purpose, but it’s right in front of me: taking care of my husband, being available for my children and grandchildren, praying for others’ needs, proofreading my daughter’s papers as she works towards her master’s degree, mentoring student writers through Christian Writers Guild, reaching out to those who read my weekly column and blogs, working to improve the talent God gave me. 

What’s in my hand? 

God’s purpose for me. Not “out there,” “someday,” but here and now. 

Forgive me, Lord, for treating as unimportant what You have put in my hand. Amen.

Read and reflect on Exodus 3–4.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea: 101 devotional readings to savor during your time with God © 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.