Hot Springs in the Desert

I love the lists of genealogies in the Bible. There's almost always a little detail in the listing that God uses in my life to speak to me in some way. I'm motoring slowly through Genesis and last week I came upon just such a gloriously long list with names that I couldn't pronounce. And tucked away in Genesis 36 I briefly met a guy named Anah that God used to remind me of how he works.

The sons of Zibeon:
Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the desert while he was grazing the donkeys of his father Zibeon. (Gen. 36:24)

I confess that I do not know the exact function of hot springs in the desert, but I can venture a guess. Based on the fact that this discovery is recorded in the midst of a long list of people who get no commentary at all, I think it's safe to say that the discovery of hot springs in the desert was fairly significant. Water of any type in the desert would bring blessing to human life and would open up opportunities for economic development (i.e. caring for animals as well as possibly agriculture). What a discovery! And what a crazy (and rather dull) way to discover it!

I find that I often want or need hot springs in different parts of my life. Right now, I could use some hot springs for my work on campus--some fresh energy, a new discovery, some new thing that would spark dynamic growth and transformation. At other times, I've needed new energy for my family. Still at other times, I've felt flat in my relationship with the Lord and wanted some hot springs discovery to propel me to new places in my walk.

How I want to get those hot springs is for the Lord to magically deliver them. What Anah reminds me is that the Lord is most often good to give us hot springs in the course of doing what we know we need to be doing. God gives us good work to do and he promises that he will be there in the midst of that work. There are times when he comes out of no where to give us a tremendous gift of grace that we weren't expecting (Christmas comes to mind as one of those times). But most often, the hot springs that we long for are to be discovered in the every-day-ness of taking our father's donkeys out to graze.

Perhaps we find this boring. God does not. He seems to find work a good thing, and he seems to delight in surprising us with great grace in the midst of, rather than apart from, the good work of every day life that he has given us to do.

Speaking of hot springs, if you've discovered hot springs this year or oil in the backyard or just need to do some year-end tax-deductible giving, head on over to www.intervarsity.org/donate and you can make a contribution on-line towards my work on campus--and here in the blogosphere! Designate your gift towards the work of Alex Kirk. Thanks!