Humanity's Dryness or Your Blessed Stream

Convicting passage today that I read Lord.  Convicting but a little bit sad I think.  It is from Jeremiah 17:5-8, and really much of the rest of the chapter and those chapters that follow.  Basically, it says that those who depend on humans for their strength will be like bushes in the wasteland.  But those who count on You will be like trees planted by streams of water, quenched and continually renewed.

I am struck by how completely descriptive this passage is, and dead on.  As someone who thrives on affirmation and support, this past winter has been very dry and lonely for me in the area of religious strength.  I feel like I've had very little affirmation of the religious ceremonies I was in charge of, or of the way that I was pursuing You, or of much about myself in general.  I didn't have help in these areas either.  As a result, I felt dry (and I'm still fighting this battle in many ways).  I felt in every way like a bush in the wasteland, parched for water, brittle in every limb.  I felt like criticism would snap my dry branches, like a bit of flame would set my whole self on fire because of my lack of life and water, and I also felt easily influenced (that is to say, like a tumbleweed, pushed about by all the winds.)

It seems to me that we should be able to rely on human support.  The love of my wife, the cries of joy from my son, the steadfast friendship of my Exodus friends and pastors... but we can't.  And it's not even that these people in my life weren't trying.  Some of them were.  But we all get to times, as humans, where we don't know the right words to say, we don't have enough time, we're distracted by our own problems, and we remove ourselves from that to help with the refreshing of others.  We also have times where, to borrow eucharistic language, we are not be poured into by others so it is really hard to pour out.  So we fail each other.  I'd like that to be different.

It occurs to me that the proper way of things, that we even teach in Exodus, is that God  fills us, then we pour into others.  I have certainly wandered this winter from my times of being filled by You.  There are so many ways that You renew me, from the wonderful words of Scripture, to works of art composed of You, to simple times of prayer and reflection, or even the prayers here on the site.  

Remind me daily to live in Your affirmation, and to live next to Your stream.  I am going to need strength in the days and weeks to come, please provide this.  Speak to me, speak through me.