Thirsty

Our wits end comes in our desperation. Today I listened to a bible study on Genesis 21. The study covered a fulfilled promise, though that is not really my focus. The birth of Isaac was a miracle in the life of Abraham and Sarah. Two old wore out people were rejuvenated; God gave Sara a baby! So who’s desperate? It’s Hagar and she’s being sent away. She did nothing wrong in her dealings with Abraham and Sarah, in fact she’s just a victim of ancient slavery, one of the great evils of sin.

Hagar’s desperate and in dire need. She’s sent, no, is driven into the desert. Supplies, if any soon ran out. The water’s gone! It’s the deserts most precious commodity and not even a drop left. Thirst grows and dehydration’s setting in and her teenage son’s with her; and both are about to die. Her wit’s end is here.

Now we switch. Abraham’s seed is becoming a nation. It’s hundreds of years later, where? They are in the desert; Israel’s in the same situation as Hagar and Ishmael. Thirst is the stories kink and link. This is Numbers 20, by the way. Now Moses has couple million people (or more), and they are thirsty and ready to string Moses and Aaron up for taking them out of slavery and into the dessert for 40 years. The 40’s almost up, but thirst drove them to grumble and complain (something we're never guilty of right). Like Hagar centuries earlier, they too were at the brink of dire need and disaster.

Thirst turns to desperation and this desperate turns them to prayer. The thing is, and we should understand this, God brought both groups to the same place of need, on purpose. Why do we, just like they, come to this place in the desert with God only to come to great thirst? I can’t say, though this might be a hint if we listen in on Jesus with this Samaritan woman.

^" When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” "

John 4:7-16  NIV

Our times of great thirst in this desert of life can only be fulfilled by living water. Our desperate wits end is usually around the corner from a miracle, yet our throats are dry. Read Hagar and Israel’s stories, because they are our stories too. We may not understand why were out here in the desert and we feel alone. Maybe the desert is our own fault; our slavery has brought us here. But, don’t you know and remember both Hagar and Israel were slaves too. And, remember He brought them to thirst in those desert places to prove He is really there, right before their eyes.