How Thirsty Are We?

I've been reading a book by Wayne Stiles......"Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus: A Journey through the Lands and Lessons of Christ".  It has been a slow process, not because it is a difficult read but because it is taking me back to the land of Israel and memories of our travels there last year.  We were told early on in that trip that we would never read the Bible in the same way after having been there, and I'm finding that to be true.  Passages now come to life as I picture in my memory the places where they happened.  And that's true as I read "Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus".  I find myself slowing down to re-visit in my memory the places he discusses.

I read a portion today about the area around the Dead Sea.  It is truly a dry, barren area.  From the western side of the Dead Sea (in Israel), you can look across the Sea and see the plains and mountains of Moab (now Jordan) where Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy.  I have been reading in Deuteronomy for the last several days, so I thought about that for a little while.

But what I really have been thinking about since I put down the book is thirst.  The Dead Sea is a body of water, but you can't drink it.  You could stand there with all that water in front of you and still remain thirsty.  That part of Israel is very dry.  The entire time we were in Israel, none of us in our group went anywhere without a water bottle!  But long ago, when Jesus was there, no bottled water was available.  I can only imagine how thirsty they might have become as they walked from place to place.  Not far from the Dead Sea is a national park.....Ein Gedi.

The ibex are one of my favorite memories from Ein Gedi.  As I watched them running around that area, with no water and very little grass (what there was had been planted in small patches and was carefully tended), it brought to life those words in Psalm 42 that we have often read and sung......."as the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after Thee."  As I visited Ein Gedi, near where the psalmist penned those very words, I saw so clearly what he was saying. 

And I was convicted in the depths of my being about how casually we sing those same words.  Do we really even think about the words we are singing as we stand in our churches, as we drive down the highway, as we go about our daily lives.  Do we really long after God with that kind of desire, that kind of thirst......the kind that would come if we lived our days in a desert with no water.  Are we that thirsty for Him?

That was what I thought about last December as I stood at Ein Gedi.  And it's what I'm thinking about this morning.  How thirsty am I?  How thirsty are you?

"You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water."  (Psalm 63:1 NASB)