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     Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. Ps. 85:6-7

     Dear Lord Jesus, it’s amazing what one really good rain can do to transform my dry, browning yard into a garden of fresh, green life. I begin this day grateful for the showers of the last couple of days. I can run my sprinkler endlessly, but there’s just something about the water that falls from the sky that brings refreshment and renewal like nothing else.

     Jesus, our hearts are no different. When we get dry on the inside—when our rejoicing in you is displaced with complaining about you (and others and anything); when our delighting in you fades into detachment from you (and from others, and eventually from our own heart); when our love for you wilts into fading memories of you (and then into all kinds of distorted thoughts about you)—we are powerless to change, and are shut up to your provision. There’s no hose, fire hydrant, or reservoir of our own making that can even begin to make a dry heart “green”.

     So we cry out with the Sons of Korah, “show us your unfailing love, O Lord, grant us your salvation.” Jesus, just as it was your unfailing love that first brought life to our deadness; likewise, your unfailing love will bring refreshment to our dryness. You have promised to “satisfy our needs in a sun-scorched land” and “strengthen our frame.” You have promised that we will be “like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail” (Isa. 58:11).

     So we boldly come before you praying the promises of the gospel. You suffered the ultimate thirst of the cross so that we will never thirst again. You have promised us living water—gushing up like an artesian spring in our souls. So revive us that we might rejoice in you. Restore to us the joy of your salvation, that we might offer the fresh fruit of grace to our families, friends, and neighbors. So very Amen we pray, in your life-giving and grace-full name.

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