Sunburned (3)
O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1 NASB
Thirsts – You’re traveling across a sea but you cannot drown. This sea moves in waves but there is no tide. It’s sand—as far as the eye can see. Sand. And the sun. Hot. Relentless. Deadly. What you need, desperately, is water. But not just liquid. You need protection, nourishment, relief and life, because in this place, without water there is no life. Your thirst is unquenchable. Even if you find the oasis, it will not be enough. What you need on the spiritual plain of destitution is living water—continuing water, life without end.
Read that into this verse. David isn’t asking for some momentary respite in life’s struggles. He is not crying out to find comfort from guilt or consolation in forgiveness. He is begging for life because he knows, even if his senses tell him otherwise, that deep inside is a wasteland of the soul, a place where we hide from the true source of our being. If you haven’t traveled there yet, you might be blessed. Or you just might not be ready. What did the disciples say after being beaten for speaking of the Messiah? “So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:41 NASB). Do you suppose the desperation we feel is a result of not accepting the trials God provides? Have you left the presence of the enemy rejoicing that you were considered worthy enough to suffer?
This is a really difficult place to be. Everything about it screams, “Get out! Get away!” And most of us do just that. We scramble to find some escape, some distraction, some numbing solution so we won’t confront the fact that we are dying inside. We go on, marching across the desert, telling ourselves that it will soon get better. We listen to those who preach the good news while all the time we ignore the discomfort in the dark corners. But God is as relentless as the Sahara sun. He leads us toward “the Anvil” (in case you have seen Lawrence of Arabia), where the only hope is to go forward. And we resist. We don’t want to keep feeling the heat, the dry death blowing into our eyes. We don’t want to discover that God lives in the wilderness where Man cannot survive. We want Egypt, even if it means slavery, so we can comfort ourselves in mutual misery.
But God won’t have it. Forward—into the sand—into the empty wasteland—to His mountain of terror and promise. Forward until He speaks. Forward until He returns. Thirst is a spiritual discipline, one we cannot afford to be without.
Topical Index: thirsts, ṣāmēʾ, worthy, suffer, Psalm 63:1
This reminds me of:
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” Hosea 2:14
Do you want HaShem to speak tenderly to you? He will lead you to the wilderness… the desert… Are you ready?
Wouldn’t this be true , and a search for any word, you look at what it is not to clarify what it is.? I am recently doing a search for the word hope, and I am finding what it is not.. hopelessness, having no future, lost. This also like me to the national anthem of Israel. It brought me to tears of joy. We as Believers can join in with that anthem!!
If you are wondering what word was misplaced for the word LEAD instead of like. Should read…. This also lead me do the national anthem of Israel.
Sorry for the typo.
And what a beautiful song the Israeli National Anthem is. I’m always moved when I listen to it.
Sin is avoidance of the true condition of the self. We sin because that is what we chose last time; to choose otherwise would mean the last choice needs to be backed up from, too. I resisted my starting line for decades. I traded more and still more effort in the supreme effort to avoid admitting the wrong choices of yesterday. The curses just got heavier.
The true condition of the soul IS thirst; at least, the soul that suffers from the illusion that we are supposed to ‘go it’ on our own. The flesh exists on that principle; our very identity in the flesh consists of believing that there is another source of water. Sin is about falling for the mirage of water from our own wells; our own righteousness; our own connections, efforts, merit. We were not created this way! We were created to be symbionts with God; the other half of His image. I thirst because He is my Water as well as my throat to swallow it with. I thirst as the blessing I was given to let me know where exactly I am still trying to drink on my own without Him. I suspect that He cried “I thirst” on the cross because He was bearing my insistence on going alone without Him. He was thirsting with my thirst.
Yeshua says He is the Living Water, and He commanded us to “drink His blood” – His life. I thirst in the places I am still not doing that. I sin to avoid feeling my own death, but that death just steals another march on me while I divert myself down at the local ‘watering hole’ the world provides.
“But, God won’t have it. Forward, into the sand.”…. Or, as tradition says, “forward into the sea.” 21 Nissan (Aviv) is the day Israel crossed through the Red Sea. They were terrified, overwhelmed and discouraged. But soon they would be singing praises to God. “I will sing to the LORD for He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and it’s rider He has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my song and He has become my Salvation.” Exodus 15:1-5. Not only were they able to cross the Red Sea into safety and freedom, they were also able to collect all the weapons of their enemies. And, the same God who delivered them will deliver us…with the same outstretched arm. “The wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous.” But we too are, and will be, challenged to walk through the our own sea (or dry desert.) May I (we) trust in His goodness and cling to Him as we move forward on the path He has prepared for us. And, may I (we) remember, as the apostle Paul said, “now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” 1 Cor. 10:11
The Samaritan women thought her daily dose of well water
was sufficient. Yeshua told her otherwise.
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever
drinks the water I give him will never thirst.”
It’s hard for man to imagine eternal life as real. Only God can open
those closed worldly eyes. The kingdom is here — and it never ends.
Would you like a drink?
“Do you suppose the desperation we feel is a result of not accepting the trials God provides?”
“Thirst is a spiritual discipline, one we cannot afford to be without.”
The desperation we feel may in part be a result of not accepting the trials God provides, but trials or not, we may feel a desperation and that desperation is simply and ultimately a result of not being filled up with all the fullness of God. It is the feeling of an unfulfilled longing for HIM, HIMSELF, AND ALL WHO HE IS AND IS TO BE IN US!
“Accepting the trials God provides” and “thirsting” are necessary, but they are not enough in and of themselves. They are stopping short.
Many of us, many times are “accepting the trials God provides”. Sometimes we may even intentionally perpetuate them for the secondary gains we receive, even at various levels of consciousness of intent, i.e. for the sympathy of others, self-loathing due to a guilty or even a falsely guilty conscience, appeasing others for acceptance, approval or favor, self-promotion of a “martyr’s” identity for religious esteem, etc., etc..
And sometimes we may even think we are righteously “thirsting” in the full, true spiritual sense of the idea, but are still only merely looking for escape from our trials or maybe for just some drop of water of provision from God that only somewhat lessens our sense of desperation or pain of our trials or conditions of soul, but it is still stopping short of the truest and full purpose of His design and intention for causing us to thirst in the first place. We may be seeking an answer for a decision. We may be seeking strength for endurance. We may be seeking insight to a problem. We may be seeking provision for some need. We may be seeking some reward for our efforts. We may be seeking some knowledge, some opportunity to do good, some spiritual gift, some fruit for His esteem and a sense of His pleasure. All of these are good and necessary things, possibly. But we may not yet be thirsting for that for which we are truly desperate, for it is the fullness of HIM in US that we were created to know. That is what we truly long for. That is what truly makes us feel desperate. The longing to be filled to all the fullness of God. We must be vigilant to not stop short. We must be vigilant to not be deceived and to not deceive ourselves. He is a jealous God, a consuming fire. In all our desperation, and in all of our trials, and in all of our thirsting, let us be desperate for HIM! Let us long for HIM! TO BE FILLED UP WITH ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD!
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father—from Him every family in heaven and on earth receives its name. I pray that from His glorious riches He would grant you to be strengthened in your inner being with power through His Ruach, so that Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to grasp with all the kedoshim what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Messiah which surpasses knowledge, SO YOU MAY BE FILLED UP WITH ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD. Now to Him who is able to do far beyond all that we ask or imagine, by means of His power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the community of believers and in Messiah Yeshua throughout all generations forever and ever! Amen.” [Eph 3:14-21]
Thank you for a good and heart filled reminder and prayer.
To be filled with God, is strong drink indeed! And we have seen the results of the imbibers of deep drafts from the eyes of our flesh and our hands tremble to hold that cup for it is to be…..cut in two , mocked, cast aside and trampled on….even hung on a cross or burnt alive. We stagger and gag in our milk filled life when it is a few drops of the reality of the battle to overcome our flesh…. to no longer over eat or be aggravated easily or admit we covet even to ourselves. This wilderness is a parched place for our flesh but eden for the spirit of the man that chooses. Be blessed. FJ
We only get the trouble we need…