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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for June 14, 2010
“Navigating the Negev”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
“I’d like to share an uplifting moment in my life…”
That’s what the e-mail said, and the writer added this in parentheses: (there have been so few of them lately.)
Is that how you feel today, like the uplifting moments in your life are few and far between?
Maybe you feel like you are wandering aimlessly in the desert, lost in a wilderness.
Well right now let’s put a picture to that feeling. It’s a place in southern Israel called the Negev.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “a dry and weary land”? That would be the Negev.
Have you ever heard of Bedouins? Bedouins live in the Negev.
Abraham and his family spent time in the Negev, but it’s not exactly a place of prosperity.
Why not?
Well have you heard of the Sahara Desert? That’s pretty much most of northern Africa, and the Negev is just east of the Sahara.
You want to know the average rainfall from June through October in the Negev?
Zero.
In Hebrew, the root word for Negev simply means “dry.”
Isaiah 30:6 calls the Negev “a land of hardship and distress, of lions and … snakes…”
Maybe that sounds like your life today, a land of hardship and distress. Your life is the Negev.
If so, then listen to this prayer in Psalm 126. Verse four says, “Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negev.”
Maybe you have heard that before, but now that you know about the Negev, that verse can really come to life. It’s a real reversal of fortunes to come across a stream in the Negev!
Maybe that’s what you need today. If your life is dry and weary like the Negev, you need some refreshing water.
In John chapter four Jesus brought up an interesting concept. He called it “living water.”
He was sitting by a well, talking to a woman who had come to draw water, and this is what He said. “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
Have you ever seen a real spring of water? I’ve seen several, and right now I’m thinking of Current River in Missouri. At its head it just gushes fresh water, seemingly right out of the rock. It’s cold and clear and never stops.
That’s what I think about when I think of living water springing up inside me.
In John chapter seven Jesus brings it up again. In verse 38 He said, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
The next verse explains it a little. “By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
There is no life without water. If you’re traveling the Negev, and you don’t find a source of water, eventually you are going to die.
Something similar is going on inside of us, in our soul perhaps. Without Christ we are living in a spiritual Negev. It’s dry and weary and burdensome.
I read a blurb last week about one of the young female pop superstars. It said she was battling depression. Well that’s about the standard for life in the spiritual Negev. This young woman seems to have it all, fame and fortune and talent to burn. And yet she feels sad and broken and depressed.
Physically we must have water, and spiritually we need living water, which is the Holy Spirit.
Without the living water, it doesn’t matter how good things are in this old world, life still feels shallow and void.
But with the living water, we can constantly be refreshed, even when our circumstances aren’t so great.
Jesus told the woman at the well that if she would have simply asked Him, He would have given her living water.
And in John seven He said that whoever believes in Him would have streams of living water flowing from within.
So is your life dry and weary? Are you navigating the Negev with no end in sight?
Then turn to Jesus. Draw near to Him and receive from Him.
Be filled with the Holy Spirit, and find that source for constant refreshment.
Ask of Him, and He will fill you with unending streams of living water, bubbling up into everlasting life.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2010 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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