Ho! Every one that thirsts! Come to the waters . . . Drink!

New Year’s Resolution #2,011: Drink more water.

Have you ever noticed that you can systematically drink less and less water, way less than your body needs, without feeling thirsty? Counterintuitive, I know. But that thirst mechanism behind your throat sort of atrophies or something.

And lots of people, when they do feel any thirst, go to coffee or soda to try to assuage it. Of course those beverages actually drain water from your system.

And as that thirst mechanism shrivels up, sometimes when people are thirsty they think they’re hungry, and then they eat . . . and eat . . . and eat . . . while they’re actually dying of dehydration.

Thirsty yet?

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? . . . O God, You are my God; I earnestly seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You, as in a dry and weary land without water.

At eleven years old, I developed a life-threatening kidney condition that hospitalized me for two weeks. My parents made me drink two quarts of water a day, and I became the healthiest I had ever been in my life.

Did I mention that I was a very sickly child? Besides asthma and stomach problems, I had this weird skin disease all over my hands and feet that made me become unable to walk normally or do pretty much anything. I dropped out of sixth grade. My mother took me to one doctor after another. I suffered much at the hands of these physicians, and rather than growing better, I actually grew worse.

But then I got the kidney disease and got well.

It was only as an adult, married to a man who knew the importance of water, that I understood what had really happened. Throughout my childhood, I never drank water. I mean I never drank water. Since I was almost never thirsty, I drank one or two cups of milk a day, and that was it. I was dying, and my skin was trying to let me know. Finally my kidneys gave the red alert.

None of those wise skin doctors, with their pills and potions and lotions and creams and plastic bags and soaking solutions ever asked my mother, “How much does she drink?” Never. Nope. Not once. Even though probably every last one of them knew that the skin is called the third kidney.

Thirsty yet?

As an adult, when I drank more and more water, I found myself becoming thirsty more often. Drinking even more. And becoming more healthy.

Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. . . . Everyone drinking of this water will thirst again; but whoever will drink of the water that I will give him will never ever thirst, because the water that I will give to him will become a fountain of water in him, springing up into everlasting life.

Oh, my soul, be Thirsty. Be very Thirsty. Don’t forsake the Living Water to hew out broken wells that can hold no water. Drink the Water. Long and deep.

Through the written Word and the Spirit, drink long and deep of Jesus Christ. You’ll find your Thirst Mechanism kicking in. And your Thirst can continuously be satisfied, because the Water will always be there. The Living Water.

Drink, and find that you become a river.

Ho, everyone! Are you Thirsty Yet?

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