God’s Response to the Thirsty Soul

Question:  how much sand would someone have to consume in order to quench his thirst?  I’ll give you a minute to find your calculator.

I know.  That’s absurd.  No one would try to quench his thirst with sand.  Assuming he survived, it would only leave the person even more desperate for what he really needed:  water.

Next question:  how much stuff would an individual have to purchase and hoard in order to satisfy his need for approval?  Doesn’t really make much sense either, does it?  Approval and things you can purchase are in two entirely different categories.  You can have either without the other.  But we both know people who have tried to leverage one for the other, don’t we?  You may have seen this one in the mirror.

Last question:  how many relationships would an individual need to pursue in order to satisfy his need for a relationship with God?  No real connect there either, is there?  But a lot of people have pursued that dead end.

Humankind was created in relationship with God.  Sin, however, put a big kink in that relationship.  Adam and Eve’s sudden exit from the garden of Eden reflects the distance sin created between God and humanity.  And that’s a distance we’ve all felt at times.  We’ve felt it when we were alone.  Perhaps you’ve felt it when you were praying.  Sometimes it’s like an ache.  Sometimes we experience it as a deep longing.  Jesus described it as a thirst.

We’ve all developed ways of coping with our past and ways of coping with our current circumstances.  The problem is we can’t receive God’s forgiving grace while continuing to prop ourselves up through denial and self-effort.  To experience God’s in-spite-of grace we must allow ourselves to feel the thirst created by our past.  The past must be embraced before it can be overcome.  Then we must declare our weaknesses and our need for God’s sustaining strength in our present circumstances.  As the apostle Paul said, it is only when we are weak that He can be strong through us.  When you acknowledge you are weak, that is an invitation to your Savior to be strong through you.  A declaration of thirst is an invitation for God to quench your thirst.

I want to encourage you to do something that may feel a bit strange.  Say the following out loud:  “Heavenly Father, I cannot, but you can.”  One more time, “Heavenly Father, I cannot, but you can.”  It is a declaration  that you need rivers of living water to bubble up and flow through your heart, mind, and emotions.  It is an acknowledgement that you believe God is able and willing to sustain you in spite of what’s happened in your past and what’s happening around you now.  Only then can His power be made perfect in your weakness.  As this becomes part of your daily routine, you will learn to finally relax in and rely on God’s sustaining grace.