Thirst

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

Psalm 42:1

The deer is desperate for drink.  In the dry, arid Middle East, perhaps with drought, the deer searches and searches for a stream.  The thirsty deer is so desperate for water that it pants for water. Intense thirst!

The psalmist relies upon this vivid imagery: Lord, that’s the way I feel about you.  Lord, I long for you.  I thirst for you.  I yearn for you.  Lord, let me meet with you.  Let me draw close to you.

The story of the Bible is a love story.  It’s a story that begins in the heart of God with a deep, unbounded, unstoppable love for his people.  It’s a love that pursues us and woos us and wins us.  It’s a love that awakens a responsive love in our hearts.  

Never forget:  It’s not duty.  It’s not discipline.  It’s not philosophy.  It’s love.  

Writer David Bryant was once in Calcutta talking with Mother Teresa.  There were great needs and pain and suffering everywhere.  At one point, Bryant asked Mother Teresa, “With the crying needs of Calcutta, how do you keep going?”  Mother Teresa replied, “I get up and spend four hours with the Lord every day because he is the deep well and I need to drop my bucket into the well every day.”  

Four hours may be a bit intimidating for most of us, nearly all of us.  But we too need time, unhurried time, with the Lord every morning.  “Jesus is the deep well and I need to drop my bucket into the well every day.”