After What Do We Thirst?
In some regards, there is a level of comfort in having a container of water at ready access, regardless of whether I drink all its contents, that is almost habitual. I’m challenged to consider in what ways my own practices around issues of perceived or real thirst may serve as detractors from focusing on the one who alone can satisfy my deepest longing.
Studies suggest, and experience may certainly serve as evidence, that water is the only beverage that truly quenches our physical thirst. While there is a level of truth, substantiated by some medical evidence, water alone will not and does not satisfy our deepest longing.
We drink from a fountain that bestows on us the gift of healing to address physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds that seek to destroy individuals, communities, countries, and continents.
Out of our hearts flows a response to feed the multitude as we are equipped to look beyond the obvious in order to determine the most pressing need that requires immediate attention. Rivers of living water that gush forth from our hearts compel us to stand with those who are singled out for ostracism while at the same time interceding on behalf of those who are unable to acknowledge their own limitations.
When we gather together in one place, with open hearts, minds, and souls, from us flows rivers of living waters. Rivers of living water flow forth from us to bridge racial, ethnic, and religious barriers by first examining how our own prejudices are obstacles to establishing healthy relationships in order to exercise the faith to lay aside our fears so that we may walk with someone who does not look, sound, or worship like us.
We drink from a source that challenges us to remind the blind that sight is not limited to the ability to see that which is visible, but sight is also the capacity to hope for that which cannot be seen with the human eye. That calls us to speak new life into what appears on the surface to be a hopeless situation.
Come and drink so that your thirst might be quenched so that out of your hearts, river of living water shall flow.