ARE YOU THIRSTY?

“And Jesus said, "Come to the water, stand by My side,
I know you are thirsty, you won't be denied…”

These are words from a worship song popular in the 1970s. I remember the first time I heard it. It was at a Bible study in someone’s home and worldwide evangelist Luis Palau was the guest speaker that day. 

As much as I love the words of the whole piece, I've had a hard time relating to “I know you are thirsty.” I was raised and lived in water-soaked Oregon for most of my life. Weather patterns are changing, but it used to rain from November until after the fourth of July. Thirsty just wasn’t part of my everyday vocabulary.

Recently, I read a short commentary on the word heart; it is the place where our desires reside. In a flash, I understood the word thirsty. 

As I read each of these scriptures, I can imagine a thirsty heart reaching out for God:

Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble (Ps. 10:17a)

You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing (Ps145:16).

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart (Ps. 37:4).

My concern is not which desires God will or will not fulfill or under what conditions they will be fulfilled.  That’s God’s business.

My job is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, yielding the desires within my heart to His scrutiny and for His purification and unfolding.  The water of the Holy Spirit will do its work.

Are you thirsty?  Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13).