A Desert Oasis

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Mon, 31/07/2017 - 19:38

If ever I was going to contract heat stroke, this was the day. We went to the Judaean desert. Temperatures were 42 degrees and what occasional breeze we had resembled being blown in the face by a hairdryer. In this wilderness, however, is Ein Gedhi, or En Gedi, an oasis of streams and waterfalls. Now a national park, it was the place to which David resorted when he wished to avoid Saul in 1 Samuel 23-24, but later finds him 'attending to his needs' in a cave there, as the embarrassed NKJV translators put it. 
 
I would normally liked to have shared this activity with Saul today, but it was so scorching that my priority was to put water in the body rather than evacuate it. Nevertheless, it was most delightful to dwell in a place of water and life in the midst of heat and death. Says the Lover in Song of Solomon chapter 1: 
 
My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blooms
In the vineyards of En Gedi.
 
In Exodus 15:27, Israel enjoys the benefit of another oasis, this time on their route from Egypt:
 
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.

I used to belong to a church in the British Elim denomination. It prefers to call itself a movement now, and some of its churches are less refreshing than others. Nevertheless, Elim was and is a great name for a church. In the arid desert which is this life, the wanderers, fugitives and travellers find life and rest, peace and refreshment in the waters of life wherein we bathe. Martin Top is located in a lush, green temperate part of England. Spiritually, though, it is in a desert. May spiritual nomads and weary travellers come here and be saved.