Ask for Water

By Rey Diaz

It was 2006.  My best friend was living in Arizona, the site for the college football national championship game, where my Florida Gators were 15 point underdogs.  Somehow, hopefully legally, my friend found us two tickets to the game.  I explained to my wife, “It’s a once a in a lifetime opportunity.”  I couldn’t believe it when they won.  It was everything I expected.  After years of waiting for this happen, my team finally won the championship!  It was glorious.  It was amazing.  And it lasted about one hour before I started thinking about next year.  Two years later it was another “once in a lifetime opportunity” as I flew to Miami to watch my team again win the title.  2 in 3 years.  But was it enough?  Am I satisfied today? H –E –double hockey sticks – NO!  I want another title. 

I thought that once my team won, I would be satisfied.  But it didn’t work that way.  In fact now I am even thirstier for championships.  And that is why, in a nutshell, this world will never satisfy.  Because we all thirst for something this world cannot offer us. 

The Bible has compares the pleasures of this world to sand, in the sense that sand will never quench your thirst.  That is the questions I asked us last weekend – how many cups of sand does it take to quench your thirst?  How many successes, how many resources, how many promotions, how many relationships, how many fill in the blanks until you are completely satisfied?  The answer is none.  Sand doesn’t ever quench our thirst.  In fact, sand actually compounds our thirst. 

Into this mess, Jesus speaks with authority.  As our creator, he knows about our unquenchable desires.  He knows about our longings.  And he offers us a gift.  He has living water for us.  And he promises that if we drink this living water, we will never thirst again.  Never.  As in, not for the rest of our lives.  Not most of the time.  Not on weekends, not when we are older, but never.  It is possible to be fully satisfied in God.  Most of us don’t believe it because we haven’t tried it.  That’s the challenge. 

Will you admit that all of your efforts, that all of that this life has to offer has left you thirst?  Jesus wants to put you in touch with your thirst.

Ask for the gift.  Ask for the living water.  Drink it.  And thirst no more. 

Where are you?  Have you realized that sand will not quench your thirst?  Have you asked for the gift?  Have you tasted of the living water?