Pools of Water

Preface

He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water.
—Psalms 107:35

I wrote the devotional thoughts found in this book during a season of unique suffering and seeking. I did not set out to write anything. Rather, this all started with a parched soul hunting for a drink. The Psalms became to me like a well from which water was easy to draw. I was so very thirsty, and I needed a light bucket. I developed a sort of addiction to the Psalms, reading them at every possible moment, to the point that I would sometimes finish the psalter in a day and restart the next. It wasn’t discipline, but desperation. Thus, I learned the blessing of affliction.

Like the wilderness of Edom, my streambed was dry, but the Lord made pools where He led me to lap up water. (2 Kgs 3) I wandered from Psalm to Psalm, drinking deeply, satiating my thirst. No sooner had I finished drinking from one than I ran to the next. I learned what it meant to go from strength to strength (Pss 84:7). As I read, the Lord began to console my heart with comforting words and promises. I had, of course, read them many times before, but never had I read them as one dying of thirst. In an effort to remember what the Lord gave me, I began to copy down those especially precious truths with which the Lord quieted me.

This is how the little book you hold now came to be. May you find help and comfort in its contents.