Thirsty?

By Tracy Phua, Singapore

Not long ago, I was having this awful sore throat—no thanks to my late nights and bad habit of not drinking enough water. I didn’t drink enough water because I didn’t’ feel thirsty. As a result, I fell sick.

Many a time, we ignore our body’s plea for water and carry on with our activities. It’s not until we feel that we’re falling sick that we chug down large amounts of water hoping to reverse the damage that has already been done.

In John 4, Jesus told the Samaritan woman that those who drink the water that He gave would never be thirsty again. But do we know that we are thirsty? Haven’t we all at some point in our lives, thought to ourselves, “Ah, I’m so tired today, I’ll pray tomorrow when I’m more awake.” Or “Everything’s going well for me right now, I have nothing to ask of God.” Or maybe even “Yeah God is great, He made everything wonderful for me, but I’ll do my quiet time tomorrow since I’m busy.” Isn’t it true that when we’re feeling physically exhausted, or when everything is going well for us, or when we’re caught up with our lives, that we compromise our daily time with Him?

And so, it’s no wonder that God has to sometimes allow us to face a big dilemma or a big stressor event to catch our attention. Only through these interventions can God turn our self-preoccupied thoughts to Him, and help us realize that we are not self-sufficient but God-dependent. It is only then do we realize that we’ve been ignoring our thirst, and hence suffering the “sore throat.”

I guess we really have ourselves to blame, isn’t it? God is faithful. He is waiting for us to turn our attention to Him. Yet we keep telling Him, “Yup wait . . . hold on . . . in a while . . ..” His “power is made perfect in our weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9), so let us remember Him in our good times as well as bad. Let’s spend daily time with Him.

“All Who Are Thirsty”

All who are thirsty
All who are weak
Come to the fountain
Dip your heart in the stream of life
Let the pain and the sorrow
Be washed away
In the waves of his mercy
As deep cries out to deep (we sing)

Come Lord Jesus come
Holy Spirit come
As deep cries out to deep

Filed under Writing and tagged with Desire for God, Tracy.