Sabbath Sanctuary: The Scent Of Water And A Resurrection Plant

For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. Though its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the dry soil, at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant {Job 14: 7-9 NASB}.

The desert. This blistering, thirsty land is used often as a metaphor to describe a spiritual season, one in which we find ourselves parched and seeking for God when He seems silent; brass heavens. The Psalmist illustrates this quite poetically:

As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? {Ps. 42:1-2 NASB}. 

I recently saw the pages of Scripture come alive in God’s beautiful and glorious creation. I love when the Lord through His creation, illustrates spiritual truths. I was watching Planet Earth: Africa and watched in amazement, as the narrator described plant life in the Sahara Desert. There is a ball of weed, severely dried out and at all appearances, it seems dead. It is similar to tumbleweed, but its branches are much thicker and more brittle. This weed is tossed about in the wind, but it takes strong winds to blow it across the dry desert sands.

This weed, though it looks dried-out and dead, when it finds just a small puddle of water, hard to find in the Sahara, it roots itself in the puddle. Once this weed finds a small patch of water, what once seemed dead, comes to life and unfurls. This alone is a miracle, but it needs one more. It waits for the rain, but the rain must come before it dries out again. The rain pours down on its dead, dry branches, and as the rain falls, it knocks the seeds off this dry bushel, and within hours, fresh, new, green shoots emerge and break through the sand. This amazing plant within weeks of sprouting, flowers and develops their own seeds. The hot sun beats down and dries them out and the cycle begins again. This plant is not a weed after all; it is a resurrection plant. These plants, while in their dried-out stage, can blow around in the Sahara for as long as one hundred years, yet when the wind and rain come, it resurrects to spread their seed through the desert.

Do you have dreams that seem to have died? Do you feel dead and dry spiritually? Jesus can resurrect everything that seems dead; all your hopes and dreams. Your purpose and calling are not dead; at the very scent of water, it will flourish and put forth sprigs {v.9}, like this resurrection plant in the Sahara Desert.  Rest this Sabbath weekend in the truth that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and Life {Jn. 14:6 NASB}, He is resurrection life.

Below is a video of this miraculous plant. As you watch, let it speak to you, let God speak to you and bring back to life those things that seem dead. Rest and believe that they will sprout forth again at the scent of the Living Water of Jesus.