The way that I like to drink water may be fairly considered to be similar to that of a thirsty desert succulent, something I comment on in various ways from time to time. While I was sitting at dinner today with my folks, enjoying a fine meal (review forthcoming), I noticed that my phone was also acting like a desert succulent when it came to the bandwidth it was drawing upon to take down all of the notifications and updates since I had turned my phone off yesterday afternoon on the flight to Seattle and then Anchorage. As it happens, my poor phone was not having a good time because for some reason (unbeknownst to me), it has not been able to connect to any cellular network and so has been reliant on wifi to be found at restaurants and our hotel. It is both humorous and somewhat sad to see the way that cell phones act like thirsty desert plants when they find a connection to the internet. I can relate, truly.

I have commented often on my thirst, but here is the sort of way it tends to manifest myself. At breakfast and also at dinner whenever the waitress came around there would be at least a glass or two for her to fill up with water and/or iced tea. This rate of drinking was a good deal faster than the people around me, as it usually is, and for whatever reason, and this I find somewhat troubling, I would not feel particularly satisfied after drinking so much fluid. One would think that drinking twice or more what others do would make me feel less dehydrated, but it did not take long at all before I felt dry and thirsty again. The water is not really doing as much as I would like. It is like the desert, which receives the waters and bursts forth into flower for a brief while but soon returns to its normal desert state again, as if the rain had never happened, and that is somewhat of a concern.

The fact that today included the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles was also a reminder to me of how it is that the earth itself at the beginning of the Millennium is also a thirsty desert longing for the rains, and longing to be something other than a barren wasteland. Mankind will nearly destroy itself before being prevented from doing so for the sake of the elect, and we appear to be doing a good job of that right now. Increasingly large parts of the earth long for the healing rains and waters to come and nourish the soil, even as thirstier and thirstier human beings like myself make it hard on the earth. I can understand, but we must all seek such living waters as are available to us, and pray that God will bring enough waters for us all to drink and be satisfied.