Thirst

All around me there is great thirst. It is still the crushing heat of summer and yet tree leaves are tumbling to the ground, sad and brown. The grass has faded to a mute yellow, and the riot of colors the flowers once showed have crumpled too. The ground is hard and dusty, cracking open as if in a silent cry for water. I see more and more creatures moving towards the shrinking puddles in the streambeds on our walks in the woods. They pant for water, for life. They are thirsting for what God has made them to thirst for. Even to my untrained eyes it seems obvious.

And yet, I have such trouble seeing a different thirst – the thirst of people all around me for God. They (we!) are parched, emotionally and spiritually strained, under the cruel heat of the world’s hardness and burdens. Some cast about, thinking to quench their thirst with what the world values. Some don’t even realize they are thirsty. We each of us are unsettled until we realize that what we are missing is the very One who has made us to long for Him.

And this water is near, waiting to spill over us. And just as the rains spill over the dry ground and seep into the cracks of the earth, so this living water, seeps into all the thirsty aching gaps in our souls.

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ~ John 4:13-14

Am I willing to drink – and help lead others to that living water too?

PPhoto by mrjn Photography on Unsplash