Thirsty?

Have you ever been so thirsty you thought you were going to die? Maybe your thirst hasn’t ever been that bad but I’m sure you have had a time when you really needed a drink. Maybe after working or exercising? Water is not an option for life, it is a necessity. You can go a few weeks without food but you will die without water in a couple of days. Our bodies are comprised of about 70% water, which blew the mind of my six year old when I told her that. She thought for sure she was about 70% candy and part of me thinks she is right.

Thirst is an indication of dryness. Your brain tells your mouth, lips, and tongue you need refreshment. But it’s not your mouth, lips and tongue that really need the water – it’s your vital organs. Your mouth’s dryness is a warning your life needs refreshing water or you will die. Where there is thirst, there is dryness. Where there is thirst, there is a longing to be refreshed. One day Jesus told a woman at a popular well, “Give me to drink” (John 4:7). This woman had more than a physical thirst. She was dry and thirsty in her soul. She spent her life trying to quench her inner thirst with many broken relationships. Her thirst could only be quenched by “living water”. Jesus gave it to her that day and she never thirst in her soul again. This was what she had been searching for all of her life and this well never ran dry.

In Isaiah 43:19, the Lord tells us, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Verse 20 goes on to say He will provide a drink to His people. In Israel, it rains mostly in the winter. The dry river beds in the summer stand as a testimony that the rain that fell will once again fall and refresh the land. When the rains do come in Israel the riverbeds usually overflow into the land around them and refresh the land and water the crops. This is the picture of God giving rivers in the desert.

Water is a emblem of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. God wants to pour His Spirit into your life and soak you to the point of overflowing. Not only does it refresh your dry riverbed, it overflows in the life of those around you. God doesn’t want you dry and empty. He wants you filled with His Spirit, overflowing with purpose and calling. Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” Appearing before Him every morning with a hunger and thirst opens your dry and weary riverbed before Him. Panting like a water-starved deer is how we should seek Him every day. Searching relentlessly for His presence. The good news is you don’t have to look far. Just look to Jesus and stop searching in the wrong places.

Are you thirsty? Is your life dry and weary? Have you tried to quench the thirst in your life through relationships, achievement, prestige, etc? Everything in life will leave you wanting more because it cannot fill. You will constantly have to go back to those wells and never be able to draw out enough to quench your innermost thirst and dryness. Jesus can quench your thirst and will keep you refreshed and hydrated. You can be like Isaiah 58:11, “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong. And you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”