Thirsty?

Every once in a while I find myself in one of those times in life when the tension meter is up for several days. I find myself thinking, "I am going crazy" Other people will say that they need a drink. That's kind of a soul check place in my life. When I think I am going crazy, its time to recognize the mirages or those places where you tend to crawl, thinking they will quench your thirst. But when you get there you find there is only sand to drink. Have any of you been to those kind of places?

Jesus had a way of cutting through our superficial thirst issues to get down to the place of our real, deep need.

The woman at the well (John 4) dealt with the very superficial issue of physical thirst. Jesus cut to the chase and began to talk to her about the deeper needs in her life, living water needs. He knew that she had been trying all kinds of ways to quench her thirst. She had gone from relationship to relationship. She had five different marriages and then just gave up on marriage and was living with a guy. When Jesus was really pressing her at that place of discomfort, she tried to show him that she was a religious person.

If you've been pressed to the place of discomfort and what do you want to do?

You want to change the subject. She began to talk about religion, but Jesus cut below religion. She asked Jesus a superficial question. "What is the right place to worship or the right way to worship. What is the right kind of music for worship?" Jesus said it's not about place or style of music. "But the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

The primary purpose of the Holy Spirit is to allow you and I to have fellowship with God, a deep intimate relationship. Jesus told this woman of the two parts of that deep intimate relationship. There are the hydrogen and oxygen of the relationship, spirit and truth.

The greatest ultimate thirst is intimacy with God. When we are not experiencing that intimacy with God, we have a tendency to escape to other things. (I need a drink.) It can even be good things. We will pour ourselves into ministry. For many of us, ministry can be another one of those mirages that promises to quench our thirst and when we crawl over there to that mirage, we discover that there is nothing there but sand to drink. Have you ever drunk sand? I have and guess what? I'm not going to be drinking sand anymore.