Drink it all in!

Years ago our family spent several days in the Diamond Lake area of Oregon.  We rented a cabin and enjoyed some fishing, boating and also hiked around quite a few waterfalls.  The last day, as we headed South to visit family, we stopped off at Crater Lake.  Being a full-fledged Oregonian, I have been to Crater Lake many times - but have never been 'on' the lake.  We hiked down a very long steep path, to the lake's dock and took a boat tour.  It was over an hour long tour and was very informative, beautiful, fun and HOT!  We arrived back at the dock in the heat of the day, and realized we had not planned well for this adventure.  We were hungry and thirsty and still had to hike back up to the parking lot.  The people that run this wonderful adventure are not stupid...right at the dock there sits a little snack shack filled with candy, sodas and bottled water.  I was thirsty and had to have water - at any cost!  I believe I saw a few tears in my husband's eye as he paid around $5.00 for that bottle of water!  We all had a drink and started up the steep path to our car.  Our teenage sons ran to the top.  My kind, loving husband stayed behind with our daughter and I, as we walked, gasped, and whined our way to the top.  Had we not had that water, I would not have made it!

I have been on other journeys in my life, that I didn't plan for.  I've felt lost in a desert, with no water and no one there to guide me. Imagine with me such a time...lost in a desert, wandering for days, nothing in sight but barren land, and no water to drink.  Then think what it would be like to turn a corner and find yourself standing at the edge of waterfall, a roaring, awesome, misting, waterfall!  Wouldn't that be a powerful moment?  Wouldn't you just jump in, drink in that water, and feel alive, refreshed and saved?  I have felt that at times when I've wandered in a desert of  my own making and then work my way back to God!

Psalm 63:1-3 teaches me about this kind of glory and power -
O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you.
In this parched and weary land; where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better than life itself.

Even when it's my own choices to be in the desert, perhaps haven't planned well, and even wounded and whine a lot...God's unfailing love is there.  I may have to make the journey through the choices I make, do the work and search, but His power and glory are waiting for me - always!  There is a line from the movie Last Holiday, "it's not how we start that matters, it's how we finish."  This is so true, whether it's our life as a whole we're talking about, or whatever journey we find ourselves on in the middle of that life.  The finish line, the top of the steep path, the edge of the lake..."Behold your power and glory."  Feel the mist on your face, hear the roar, see the power of it!  Set your gaze on it.  Drink it all in!