By Barbara Higdon
Psalm 63:1-8
“All day I’ve faced a barren waste/Without a taste of water,” sang the Sons of the Pioneers. “Old Dan and I with throats burnt dry/And souls that cry for water. Cool, clear water.”
Those of us who live in South Texas know well the thirst that Bob Nolan’s lyrics describe. The psalmist who wrote today’s reading understood that thirst and the deeper thirst of the soul when he wrote, “I seek you, my soul thirsts for you…in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
Mirages beckon, but they fail to deliver.
“Keep a-movin’ Dan, don’t you listen to him, Dan/He’s a devil, not a man, and he spreads the burning sand with water.”
How often the false relief promised by a shimmering pool of water on the sand distracts us. We rush towards mirages in hope that we’ll find relief, only to be disappointed. Like the desert dwellers of old, we stumble about dismayed that we’ve been beguiled by lies again.
At the well, Jesus promised the Samaritan woman, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14).
What a promise.
May our hope rest upon the Keeper of the well that never runs dry. As we move toward the time that reminds us that Christ bought that living water with his life, may we drink deeply from the spring of water that gushes up to give us that same eternal life.
Father, forgive us when we are sometimes distracted by the sparkling promises of the world. Help us gratefully drink the living water you offer to satisfy our souls and quench the thirst within us. Amen