From ‘Sunrise Sunset’ (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco), Rowland Croucher’s book of daily meditations. Feel free to use or adapt it.

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness… Mark 1:4.

God may not call you to live in a desert, or to ‘sell all you have and give to the poor’. Jesus’ universal call was not to poverty but to discipleship and obedience (‘Follow me!’). However, in these days when hundreds of thousands are refugees, millions are starving and homeless, and the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, you and I must caringly and prayerfully distinguish between our wants and our needs. We can’t justify, in our kind of world, heaping up luxuries around us while others are living and dying so pitifully.

So John the Baptist comes to the ‘deserts of our lives’ – to those who are dry, empty, barren, weary, and bored. We who have most of the things we need, but who are still ‘thirsting for living water’ can receive new life and new hope through humbly repenting and re- examining our lives – and our ‘lifestyle’.

Lord Jesus Christ heal me of the cancer of materialism, forgive my sins, baptise me with your Holy Spirit. As I turn my eyes to you, and look full in your wonderful face; may the things of earth grow stangely dim, in the light of your glory and grace. Amen.

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