When were you last really thirsty? I remember a three hour climb to the summit of Snowdon one summer. It was the most glorious day, 90 degrees in the shade, except that there was no shade. We were all immensely grateful to the folk who had the foresight to build a cafe at the top!
Much longer ago, I recall those sports matches where we would run around crazily for an hour and a half in blazing sunshine and come in to gulp down two pints (of lemonade) with hardly a breath. Years later half an hour on the squash court produces the same desperate thirst.
Of course, many parts of the world are much hotter and dryer than Britain. Friends working in Africa are very careful to drink at least a gallon of liquids every day to avoid the perils of dehydration. Man can survive for weeks without food, but only for days without water. In desert lands where heat and thirst can threaten death, water is truly valued and really precious.
We are becoming more familiar with the scenes of tragedy which follow drought in such countries. By comparison, the difficulties we occasionally face in “water shortages” are only trivial inconveniences for most of us. But they perhaps help us to appreciate water a little more.
It is no surprise that the writers of the Bible in the arid Near East used water as a symbol to represent the blessings of God. Water - as essential for plants and animals as for man - cooling, cleansing, refreshing, restoring, life-giving.
So the Bible pictures God’s saving activities as “streams of water flowing in the desert” and looks forward to the “river of life” flowing in heaven. Jesus Himself promises springs of living water welling up to eternal life for all who believe in Him.
There is one simple requirement for people to receive these blessings of God, symbolised by water. They must be thirsty! Jesus promises in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied”. When we really long to know God and experience his love and power in our lives, we will be satisfied. When we are really thirsty, our thirst will be quenched.
Many people have times in their lives when they feel that they need God, but surely this “thirst” for God is something more. The writer of Psalm 42 longed to meet with God in this way.
“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God.” Christians through the ages too have written of this deep longing for God; Augustine, Martin Luther, the Wesleys and many more. Why should it be so rare to find someone today with such a desperate thirst for God? Somehow we seem too easily satisfied in our experience of God. So few seem thirsty, even less parched.
Fresh cold water is so freely available that we usually take it for granted. Perhaps we make the mistake of treating God the same way.