“Stay Satisfied My Friends”
“Stay hydrated!” is every Israel tour guide’s mantra.
Israel can be HOT, HOT, HOT at this time of year. Simply walking the ruins of Masada next to the Dead Sea or wandering the ancient ruins of Tel Arad in the Negev, arid desert air sucks moisture from the body at an alarming rate. Those who wait to drink only when they feel thirsty fall prey to dehydration.
Much more than the discomfort of thirst, unabated dehydration poses a bodily existential threat. We can go without food for three or more weeks, but only a week without water. In the desert this can drop to mere hours because as adults, approximately 60% of our body’s mass is water.
We start feeling thirsty when water loss is in the 2-3% range. But our bodies are so water-dependent that a mere 1% drop impairs our mental and physical performance. Our physical existence depends on a constant supply of drinkable water.
Thirst is a powerful metaphor for desiring the essential. Physically, cracked lips, headaches, enervation, mental confusion, lack of concentration, exhaustion, and sleeplessness are our bodies’ ways of signaling our need for life-sustaining water. So too, emotional malaise, dissatisfaction, disappointment, and despair signal our need for the spiritually essential.
Seeking satisfaction is not optional.
Desperate for relief, we instinctively try slaking our spiritual thirst materially. We marry, divorce, bear, abort, climb mountains, conquer nations, switch jobs, move, champion causes, eat well or not so well, consume, horde, discard, build, practice religion, reject God, create gods, medicate, self-medicate, detox, create art, retire early or late….
The outcome is always the same. Satisfaction is fleeting. Our thirst and its symptoms persist. Why?
As watery beings, the humble H20 molecule satisfies physically. As spiritual beings, we require a spiritual solution to satisfy our thirst.
No one understands this more thoroughly than the One who created us in His image. Bearing His image creates in us spiritually the same kind of need that our watery nature creates in us physically. The absence of the essential, be it water or God, produces unpleasant and potentially deadly symptoms, driving us to seek that which is lacking. But as long as we persist in slaking this thirst with everything or anything but God, we doom ourselves to death by spiritual dehydration.
Fortunately for us, God knows our need and offers to meet it abundantly in Messiah.
With a well of physical water as a backdrop, Yeshua spoke with a woman who had experienced the dissatisfaction of quenching her spiritual thirst through multiple marriages and relationships. Pointing to Himself as the solution to her thirst Yeshua said,
Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty. The water I give him will become a fountain of water within him, springing up to eternal life! [1]
This is great news, not only for this particular woman, but for you and me!
Each of us knows the discomforts of spiritual dehydration, and the devastating dissatisfaction that comes with every desperate attempt to meet it. Sharing the solution to this need drives everything we do at Life in Messiah. By God’s grace and calling we are carrying Messiah’s life-giving water to His Jewish people and everyone God brings into our sphere of influence. It is our 24/7/365 passion.
Perhaps you are among the “everyones” struggling to satisfy your spiritual thirst. We would be honored to help you along the path to finding the refreshment you need. Please reach out to us.
Satisfaction of thirst in Messiah is the life-giving message Life in Messiah staff bring into our parched and perishing world…to the Jew first and also to the Gentile (Romans 1:16). May Messiah’s water springing up to life overflow in many Jewish and Gentile people as we labor together for His glory.
Stay hydrated my friends!
Written by Dan, Life in Messiah Board Chair
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Endnotes:
[1] Tree of Life Version John 4:13-14. Yeshua spoke these words to a Samaritan woman who appreciated the importance of physical water but addressed her need for spiritual water. After helping her see her real need, she found the living water Yeshua promised by putting her trust in Him as the promised Messiah.