Like Water in the Desert

Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you.

 

If we want to know God, the only way to know Him is to draw close to Him.  Theologians and philosophers can tell us what God is like, but they cannot get us close to Him.  Jesus came for one reason -- to establish the kingdom of His Father by making Him known to mankind.  Reading the Gospel of John 7 times makes it clear to us that Jesus wants us to know the Father for ourselves.  He wants to give us water in the desert of our lives; He wants "living water" to spring up to eternal life deep within us -- and, as I quoted yesterday from Jn. 17:  this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

 

Always, again and again, I watch people draw close to God in times of trouble and distress, but then when the pressure eases, they pull away from Him again.  I suppose this is human nature, to be independent whenever we can, and to be dependent on God when our own resources fail.  But here's the thing -- even though we can go without water for a few days, even our bodies tell us how dependent we are on water.  Without it, all our organs shrivel up and eventually shut down.

 

It is the same with our souls.  We may think we can operate for a time without the living water that Jesus said He would give us, but we don't realize how parched and lifeless we become without the renewing of our spirits:

 

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God? (Ps. 42).

 

In Psalm 22, which begins, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" the speaker cries out, "My strength is dried up like a potshard, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth..."  Jesus took upon Himself our human condition of withdrawing from God and experiencing the slow death of spiritual dehydration -- a condition that eventually also will affect the body.

 

In stark contrast to the 'drying up" of our souls is Psalm 23:

 

The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside still waters,

he restores my soul.

 

Who would not want this kind of Shepherd?  Who does not desire to lie down in green pastures and beside the still waters of peace and kindness?  In the Book of Revelations, the One Who has overcome the world and who now sits on the Great Throne in heaven says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.  To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life (21:6). 

 

All that Jesus asks of us is that we be thirsty for Life and for God Himself.  He will do everything else necessary for us -- because He is the beginning and the End of our spiritual growth and development.  It begins with the Father sending His Light into our hearts, and it ends with Jesus presenting us as gifts to His Father, "spotless and without blemish."  It is not hard to be thirsty for God, and once we begin to taste of the living water He gives us, nothing else can ever satisfy our souls. 

 

Once we begin to drink from the spring of water welling up to eternal life, as Jesus promised the woman at the well, something else begins to take place in us.  In Chapter 7 of John, Jesus cried out in a loud voice:  If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.  Not only do we drink from the Rock to quench our own thirst, but as we become filled with the Holy Spirit, the living water flows out from us to those around us, like water in a desert.

 

Come, Holy Spirit, fill us with the fire of your love and the living water like streams in the desert!