Thank You, Next

I've been travelling a lot lately, and I use a cool travel app, Polarsteps to track my trips and show my progress over the globe. After getting home from a fun time in Nashville, I was updating the journey in the app. As I logged in, it said to me, "You haven't travelled in 2 days! Plan your future trip now!"

Woah, easy tiger! Can I just recover from that trip first, please?!

Yes, I know that is automated to show, whether it is 2 or 200 days, but it struck me how we're also automated like that—we're always searching for more; moving onto the next, bigger, better thing. We finish one trip and we're already planning the next. We take our last bite at lunch and think about what's for dinner. We buy cool new shoes and already the ads for the next pair surround us.

We live in a culture of perpetual unfulfillment. Consumerism shapes us to always be dissatisfied with our current situation, so that we open our wallets to try and purchase that ever elusive satisfaction. Yet we're always left thirsting for something more.

In the well known story in John 4, there is a woman who felt this way. She was thirsty, unsatisfied, and longing for something more.

And in varying ways and degrees, we all are too. So often our souls are left to run dry, in need of re-filling, replenishing. And if you've ever been severely dehydrated, you know how awful that can be. Yet we do that to ourselves spiritually.

We're good at carrying around our water bottles to quench our physical thirst and try be healthy, but how often are we stopping to drink deep of the Spirit to give life to our souls?

In John 4, Jesus promises the woman and us that we never have to be thirsty again. But in order to obtain that living water that quenches everything, we have to actively and consistently be with him and absorb all he has to offer.

So my challenge for today is to identify the 'wells' that I am running to in an attempt to quench my thirst—travelling, highly liked photos on Instagram, success at work, people liking me, etc, etc—and to remind myself that these are so temporary and will always leave me thirsty again.

And then, instead, to run to the true Fount of Living Water (Jeremiah 17:13), to the one who calls the thirsty to him to drink of the life and fulfillment that only he can offer (John 7:37). To the one who not only knows everything I long for—even the hiddens things I'm not aware of—but also gives and satisfies the desires of my heart.

“You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” - Psalm 145:16
"Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." - Psalm 37:4

Perhaps in this broken life on this broken earth, we will never fully know that perfect satisfaction, but we hold onto this beautiful promise of the eternity that lies before us in Jesus:

"They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes." - Revelation 7:17

In Jesus, our longing will be fulfilled, our satisfaction found, our thirst quenched.