“My soul cleaves to the dust….”  Psalm 119:25

I whispered the words at night a few months ago.  Words dropped, next to tears on my pillow, spilling this way and that as Mike and I ended the day before the Lord.  Always wrapped in each others arms, thanking God for what has been and recounting things we desperately desire.

This time it is the dusty cry of a parched heart.  “Lord, I am so dry.  It has been so hard and I feel so alone.  Why can’t I feel your presence and Oh’ Father, please speak.  My heart aches to hear you speak fresh to this set of needs.”

I knew He never leaves.  Never a moment without His presence.  Always protected.  Always loved.

But I was desperate for something fresh.  I was not alone.

“As a deer pants for streams of water,
 so my soul pants for you, Oh’ God.
 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42

It isn’t wrong, you know.  To confess to the Lord that you feel a longing for Him.  Or even that you don’t.  Perhaps, like me, like the Psalmist, you soul has cleaved to the dust and it has left you unsatisfied.  Sometimes the parchment is self inflicted- sin, confessed or otherwise, anger, bitterness, ingratitude- all drought producers.  Other times, it is a trip through a divine desert place meant for our growth.

“O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul THIRSTS for you,
my body LONGS for you,
in a dry and weary land where
there is no water.”  Psalm 63:1

The kind of thirsting that I am describing is the thirst of someone who has once drunk deep of the Spring of Living Water.  This parched, cottoned mouth has felt the filling of the Lord and longs to again be satisfied. She has felt the intimacy of a heart cleaving to her Savior. So had the Psalmist.

“I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power
and your glory.
Because YOUR LOVE is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your names I will lift up my hands.”

         “My SOUL WILL BE SATISFIED…”

Psalm 63:2-3,5a

 Isn’t this the thirsty one?  Isn’t this the weary, dust cleaving one?  Now recounting the glory of the Lord and the love of the Lord.  Finding strength to lift up his hands? How?  How? How?

“My SOUL WILL BE SATISFIED…”

That night in my bed I cried out for renewal.  I had not stumbled.  I wasn’t in a pit of sin. (But for the Grace of God).  I wasn’t in rebellion.  I was just thirsting for more of HIM.  I had a giant dissatisfaction with the world that left me pining for nothing that will satisfy and growing inside me was a deep desire for change.

It wasn’t until a few short days later that I realized the renewal that I was hoping for had a different name, a biblical name.

REVIVAL.