Into the Waste

The caravans turn aside from their course; they go up into the waste and perish. The caravans of Tema look, the travelers of Sheba hope. They are ashamed because they were confident; they come there and are disappointed.
Job 6:18-20
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Into the Waste
The caravans of Job’s day traveled well known routes to bring their fairs from one trading post to the next.  They knew where to look if a well had run dry.  They could wonder off into the waste hoping to find a stream to quench their thirst.  What a pitiful sight it would have been to arrive at the bank of a dry streambed with no hope of relief.  This was what Job had hoped for.  When his friends arrived, he expected to find a kind word and a sharing of grief.  Yet they offered as much help as a dry creek bed in the desert.  So often this is the case when we rely on help and strength from places other than God.  We find nothing of benefit, nothing which can help take the pain away of relieve the suffering.  More times than not what we find hurts us even more.  It is as if we found the stream in the desert, but it was too salty.  Our thirst would be exacerbated.  When we drink from the devil’s bitter cup we are left dying in the waste.  Yet there is another way.  Christ Jesus gives us the cup of eternal life to drink from, “[W]hoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).  In Christ we have the life saving Word which leads us out of the waste and into green pastures, to lay beside still waters.

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”
(Revelation 7:16-17).