But the People Were Thirsty: "I Thirst!"

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  Exodus 17:1–3 The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” CONSIDER THIS Is anyone thirsty? The truth: Everyone is thirsty. Really, really thirsty. It is fascinating how God provides quail in the evening and manna in the morning, yet he is willing to let the Israelites struggle and suffer with a lack of water. Why does he allow them to thirst? The average parent never tells their children to make sure they eat enough on a hot day, but you can bet they will tell them to drink lots of water. We can go quite a while without food, but we would never even consider fasting from water. The Israelites added a new feature to their grumbling habit—quarreling. Look at Moses’s terse response: Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” They only wanted a drink, Moses. How is that testing the Lord? They were thirsty. Here’s my take. Something about thirst creates desperation. Something about desperation focuses prayer. Something about prayers of desperation creates a context for divine breakthroughs. Something about divine breakthroughs transforms nominal religion into blazing faith. Something about blazing faith changes not just one life but transforms entire communities and traverses up and down generational lines. Remember where we started—thirst creates desperation. Thirst is the setup for the miracle. God allows them and us, to thirst because he wants to give us the gift of desperation. There is a profound connection between the thirst of our physical bodies and the much deeper thirst of our souls. Our souls thirst for the Spirit of God like people walking for days in the wilderness without water. We try to quench our thirst in every conceivable way, yet our thirst only deepens. I’ve always been fascinated by the way liquor stores are often called “Spirit Shops.” There’s something really ancient in this connection between drinking and spirits. In fact, Paul confirms the connection in his exhortation, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). It’s why addiction has been called the sacred disease. Here is a great mystery, though. How is it that the people who drink the most alcohol become the greatest at living in denial of their thirst for it?  Here is a great truth: the deepest, most profound, and otherwise unquenchable thirst of every single person on planet Earth is for God—namely, the Holy Spirit. Do we really believe this? As we close today, let’s remember this story from the Gospel of John. Jesus once made a secret trip from Galilee to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. This feast commemorated the Israelites’ wilderness years. In order for the memory to lead them into the mystery and back into the movement, people would make little brush arbor huts and live in them throughout the feast. By this time, Jesus was a wanted man, and he laid low for most of the week. He did some teaching in the temple courts. And then John shares this bit: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this, he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37–39) Here’s the thing about thirst. As Jesus quenches our thirst with the gift of the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves both satisfied yet thirsting for more. This is the great challenge and inestimable gift of the wilderness. There is always more. THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer. We hear you from the cross speaking those words, "I thirst." You said them for yourself, and yet you said them for us—even for me. Yes, Lord, I thirst. Would you deliver me into the reality of my thirst, even let me walk around for days without water to unveil it? I receive your deliverance into real thirst and then from this kind of thirst into real drink. Put me in touch with the desperation of my soul to drink living water from the well of Jesus and disciple me into the experience of rivers of living water flowing from within me.  It will be for my good, for others' gain, and for your glory.  Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!