As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?     Psalms 42:1 HCSB

Here in Southeast Louisiana, we have been experiencing a severe drought. First, the first time I can ever recall in my life, the grass crunches under our feet. Flowers, grass, and even trees are dying due to a lack of rain. It brings to mind a time when I was going somewhere with my niece. She is 11 now, but at the time she was about 3 years old. It began to rain.

She said she hated the rain. I explained to her that we needed rain because it made the flowers grow and that without rain they would die. For the first time I can recall, Louisiana is experiencing wildfires due to a lack of rain. Our vegetation is dying.

The interesting thing about rain is it’s one of those things that only God can produce. When God withholds something that only He can give, it not only helps us to see we need that thing but that we need Him more than anything. We need the rain, but more than rain, we need Jesus in our lives.

In addition to this drought, we have been experiencing extremely high temperatures. We are no strangers to hot summers here, but to have temps regularly go to 100 degrees and above is not something to which we are accustomed. And while we can’t produce rain, we can also not control the outside temperature.

Saturday, I watched in amazement as the skies began to cloud up and I could hear thunder. Now, we have heard thunder in the weeks past only to find that it was just a thunderstorm producing little if any rain, but Saturday was different. It actually rained. Some people even had hail.

The same thing happened again Sunday afternoon and late Sunday night. God sent rain. There is a rain forecast for this evening and tomorrow as well. The reason I’m sharing all this with you is that our region usually experiences more of a sub-tropical climate. We are more apt to deal with floods than with drought. These are unusual circumstances we find ourselves in.

I am a firm believer in the old saying that you never miss what you’ve got until it’s gone. We may have complained at times about getting too much rain, but now we are begging for it. We are missing those afternoon rainstorms that are normally a part of our summers down here.

I have often wondered if God is trying to give us a little example of what hell will be like. The worst part of hell won’t be the unbearable heat, it will be the absence of God. When we are doomed to spend eternity in hell, we will no longer have the opportunity to accept Christ as our Savior. We will no longer have the opportunity to worship God. We will be banished from Him forever.

In this Psalm, David longs for God. He compares it to a deer longing for a stream of water. David goes on to describe his depression and turmoil. We tend to long for God when we have times of trouble. But often when things are going well, we forget about Him.

We may be praying for rain right now, but I understand we are in for a wet, cold winter. We may be praying for the rain to stop in a couple of months. Who knows?

We may think we need rain or relief from these extreme temperatures, but what we truly need is God. We need God more than we know. We need Him every minute of every day. Without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). We need Him as much as the flowers need the rain and as much as the deer needs the cool stream of water.

If you don’t have Him in your life, you need Him. If He isn’t the most important part of your life, He should be. In John 15, Jesus describes Himself as a vine and us as the branches. We can’t survive without Him.

Take a good, hard look at your life. Is Jesus in your life? Does He have first place, or have you pushed Him back? Have you surrendered to His will? If you answered “no” to any of these questions, there will come a time when you long for Him.

Surrender to Him today, He’s right there waiting for you. Give it all over to Him before it’s too late.

Have a great day!