June 27, 2010

Really Thirsty

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READ: Psalm 42

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. —Psalm 42:1

Have you ever been really thirsty? Years ago, I visited my sister Kathy in Mali, West Africa. During an afternoon of seeing the sights, the temperature had risen far above 100ºF. Parched, I told her, “Hey, I need something to drink.” When Kathy told me she had forgotten to bring along a supply of filtered water, I began to get a bit desperate. The longer we drove, the more I wondered what it was like to truly die of thirst.

Finally, Kathy said, “I know where we can go,” as she drove up to the gate of an embassy. Inside I beheld the most beautiful sight—a water cooler! I grabbed one of the tiny paper cups and filled it again and again. My body had been deprived too long and now required lots of liquid to reverse the effects of dehydration.

The psalmist compared physical thirst with spiritual thirst: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God” (Ps. 42:1). His thirst was that of a desperate longing for God—the one and only living God (v.2).

Do you long for something this world can’t provide? This dissatisfaction is a thirst of the soul for God. Run to the One who alone can quench that thirst. “He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness” (Ps. 107:9). —Cindy Hess Kasper

My hunger for the truth He satisfies;
Upon the Word, the Living Bread, I feed:
No parching thirst I know, because His grace,
A pool of endless depth, supplies my need. —Sanders

Only Jesus, the Living Water, can satisfy the thirsty soul.

From Gail:

Picture yourself coming in out of the hot sun after working out in it for over three hours.  You have a choice between cold, refreshing, clean, water, or drinking out of the trough down at the barn.  Which would you choose?  I think the answer is obvious.  Yet, this is what we do when we try to quench the thirst within ourselves.  Instead of reaching out to God who is reaching out to us with a cool refreshing drink, we choose the sin of this world.  It satisfies for a moment in time, and then it is over.