"The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. " Isaiah 58:11

What a wonderful promise from our wonderful Father. But note that this scripture is not without conditions nor is it a complete sentence. Two other verses precede it and tell what God expects of those who wish His continual guidance and such a moment-by-moment fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit that even times of drought are filled with His satisfying presence.

Let's look at those preceding verses; in fact, the whole chapter should be reviewed often by a true disciple. Ancient Israel was just like today's modern Church - the object of God's affections and often the source of His great heartache.

The first five verses expose the hypocrisy of substi­tuting religiosity for reality; prideful smugness for pure spirituality. Even prayer and fasting can be an abomination to God when done to satisfy human ego and exalt fleshly pride.

But then God tells what loving Him should be all about; breaking the chains of spiritual prisoners, lifting the heavy burdens of others, feeding and clothing the hungry and poor, training our own tongues to build oth­ers rather than judge them, and living to satisfy others and not just our­selves.

Those are the conditions that open the doors to God's promised blessings in verse 11 and those that follow. You'll be His watered garden and your life like an artesian well that never runs dry. Those who delight in the Lord always find the Lord delighting in them!

My prayer: “My Father, help me to get my eyes off of myself and on to the needs of others so that I will experience more fully Your guidance and Your watering of my own thirsting soul.”

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1)
The ST. PAUL SCHOOL, with Frank Eiklor, Eileen Young and Cecilia Contreras