I was headed to church recently to help pray with someone who was in need of inner healing. On my way there, I asked the Lord if He had anything specific He wanted to say to them.
Let me just clarify…I’m not super confident in my prophetic ability or in words of knowledge, so I like to double—and maybe even triple—check before I say anything. So, I’m driving down the highway, praying, and as I looked up at the sky, God showed me a cloud that looked just like a camel.
Of course, I started to laugh.
Because sometimes you just know He’s showing you something for a super uncomfortable reason.
So I said, “Really, Lord? A cloud-camel?! Why does it always seem to be something weird with me?! What do You wanna say about a camel?!”
And as I sat with Him through the rest of the car ride, He began to unfold this picture of our hump-backed friend in the sky.
When a camel journeys through the desert, it is uniquely equipped to survive long stretches in an environment where water is scarce. Contrary to what many of us learned somewhere along the way, a camel doesn’t actually store water in its hump. It stores fat—a nutrient-rich reserve built up when food is available. Then, when resources become scarce, its body can draw from what has already been stored.
And there was the picture.
The camel enters the wilderness carrying within itself something it stored up before the wilderness ever came—but that stored provision must still be accessed when the dry season arrives.
As its body begins drawing from that reserve, oxygen breathed in and carried through the bloodstream helps metabolize the stored fat, producing energy—and even water—as part of the process. What was stored away in a season of plenty literally helps sustain the camel when it finds itself in a dry and barren place.
And isn’t it just like the Lord to use the flow of water and blood to preserve life in the wilderness?
I believe He does something similar in us.
Day after day, as we take in the Word, pray, worship, sit in His presence, and learn His voice, we are storing up something nutrient-rich within us. We may not even realize how desperately we may need it someday. But then comes the wilderness. The dry season. The place where the usual sources of refreshment seem nowhere to be found.
And suddenly, what was stored becomes sustenance.
The Scriptures we tucked into our hearts years ago begin coming back to us. The promises we once read become the promises we cling to. The things He whispered to us when life was simpler become the truths we desperately need when life is not.
What looked like ordinary nourishment at the time was actually preparation.
“The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
—John 4:14
Think about that for a moment.
The water Jesus gives doesn’t merely come to us. He says it becomes a fountain in us.
There is already something there.
Something stored.
Something placed within us by Him.
And when the Breath of God moves upon what has been stored within us, what was once simply nourishment becomes life-sustaining water in a dry place.
So, if you find yourself in a wilderness today, stop frantically searching the horizon for an earthly oasis to fix your circumstances.
Turn your attention toward the One who has been preparing you all along.
Invite the Holy Spirit to breathe upon the truths, prayers, and Scriptures you’ve stored away over the years. Remember what He has spoken. Remember what He has taught you. Remember what you already know to be true about Him.
Because maybe the wilderness hasn’t found you empty after all.
Maybe you’ve been carrying provision into it all along.
Maybe every ordinary morning you opened your Bible when you didn’t particularly feel like it, every Scripture you tucked away in your heart, every prayer you prayed, every moment you spent learning the sound of His voice was preparing you for a wilderness you couldn’t yet see coming.
And now you’re here.
The provision is already within you.
Breathe, Holy Spirit.
Breathe upon what has been stored.
And let the Living Water flow.
220 Gal 