Thirst

Silwood is a beautiful place. Sometimes I sit at my window, which overlooks the fields and the trees, and just gaze out of the window and type. There's a Western Red Cedar just outside my window and on its left is a slender white birch with its silver trunk. Sometimes the rabbits stop just outside and nibble on the grass.

With so much beauty I feel as though my soul is being fed. It was when we were sitting in a bus going around the Lake District that I felt as though my soul was going to burst, it was so full with all the beauty around me. That was when I thought my soul must be made of beauty too, because it was with beauty that it was fed.

There are many beautiful things in the world. There's love, there's friendship, there are relationships. There are good deeds. Seeing the old people in the nursing home every week is beautiful, singing in church every Sunday night is beautiful. Music is beautiful. Playing the keyboard is beautiful when your fingers run on and can't seem to help themselves playing.

But these beautiful things are like salt water if you only depend on them. You keep drinking more and more of them but they don't satisfy you. Serving in church week after week. Confiding your all to your friends. They're all beautiful things. But pale substitutes for the real water, living water that quenches thirst.

"My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

No wonder my soul was still hungry, no wonder I still desired for something more. When the spring of living water with the deepest, purest source was freely flowing in front of me, I was digging my little broken cistern, polluted and shallow. He declared He Himself was to feed me, and in looking to satisfy my hunger I turned to look for His favour and forgot that it was all FREE.

All my life I had a longing,
For a drink from some clear spring,
That I hoped would quench the burning,
Of the thirst I felt within.

Feeding on the husks around me,
Till my strength was almost gone,
Longed my soul for something better,
Only still to hunger on.

Poor I was, and sought for riches,
Something that would satisfy,
But the dust I gathered round me,
Only mocked my souls sad cry.

Well of water, ever springing,
Bread of life so rich and free,
Untold wealth that never faileth,
My redeemer is to me.

I have found Him my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies my longings,
Thro His blood I now am saved.

He satisfies my cravings in a way no other can. He's told me everything I've ever done; can He be the Christ? Like the woman at the well let me leave my jug behind with Him for I won't need it anymore. I have a better source of water and I will never thirst again.