Thirst

Psalm 63:1

NKJV

“O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.”

At one point or another in our life, we will know what it feels like to be parched. A thirst beyond thirst, where every fiber of being longs to be satisfied with even the smallest drop of sustenance.We may look around, high and low, near and far to gain this relief. Some may even find it, but it's only temporal. When in a dry and thirsty land, the resources are so limited. From horizon to horizon our eyes only behold the dryness of the desert we've ended up in. We wonder achingly whether or not help will come, or a spring will rise up from the earth, or water pour out of the rock like it did for Moses. When it gets to this point, without being rightly related to God, we lose hope. Before coming to God with our thirsts, our parchments, we must go through Christ and be washed in His blood. None can enter the throne room of God without purity, purity which comes only by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. Once we have walked through the door that Jesus has opened for us, we can begin to cry out for our God to quench our thirst.

God does not use the water of the natural world to satisfy our thirsty souls. Sooner or later, earthly water will need to be provided again, or we could find ourselves dead. We can correctly relate the world we live in to be this earthly water, which never fills that hole inside of us. So many things cry out to us like harlots on street sides, seducing us into thinking eternal satisfaction lies in the pleasures of life. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are nothing to joke around with. They are dangerous, even to the life of a believer. If Peter warned us in his first letter to “be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, (I Peter 5:8)” then how serious it is that we do so! This is where death lies in wait, when we are least expecting it, when we stop being watchful for it. The wages of sin are death, and everything the world has to offer us is sinful in its very nature, for it resists the things of God and chases towards it's own desires and lusts. Greed, hatred, deceit, immorality, pride, striving, lusting, idolatry, all these are trademarks of the world we live in. This world is the dry and thirsty land where there is no water. Since a human can't last more than a few days without water, how can we expect to truly live off the false sustenance the world gives us? We can't, but there is One who can give us just what we need to live again.

The water God provides us is living, and is offered to us through the living Christ. For life to be given, there has to be life to give away. Since our God is limitless, and does not know anything but overflowing abundance, we can trust our Source to be faithful all through eternity. At one word He created all the waters of the earth, breathed life into Adam, fashioned the stars we look at during the night. Similarly, with one word He can pour out the living water we need to sustain us and bless us in our temporal abode. We can receive rest for our souls, peace in our hearts, and joy in every fiber of our being. This is a reality for some Christians, and yet for others it's not. Why? I'm learning this still, but I've come to know one thing about why; we are unwilling to yield everything to Christ. Gods perfect peace is only attained through surrendering every minute detail of our lives to Him, and then trusting Him to keep us in fellowship with Him. We were not saved by works, and we certainly aren't expected to maintain by works. Even our Christian walks are deeply fed through the grace of God, and if we want the life God has for us, well, it all begins with surrender. Let us always seek our Father earnestly, desiring to know where and how we can more fully surrender ourselves to Him, and then let us wait upon Him to follow through with His abiding presence.