As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Psalm 42:1-2
Dear Lord Jesus, most of the time I’m quite wary of the sensation of thirst and I’m quick to slake its beckoning demands. In fact, I try to stay well-watered, staving off the remotest possibility of dehydration.
But the more I see of your beauty and the more I taste of your bounty, the louder my cry becomes, “Jesus, intensify my thirst for you. Keep me panting like a deer after streams of water-the unpolluted undistilled streams which you alone provide.
Quickly drain the broken-cisterns of my own making. Don’t let me be even temporarily satisfied with any other beverage than the draft you draw… the potion you pour… the quintessential libation I know as the wine of holy communion. For the thirstier I stay for you the more I will experience of you. What a glorious paradox…
If I take up King David’s lament, “When can I go and meet with God?”, you answer back in a nanosecond, “Right now, my beloved… do not delay. If you’re thirsty, come to me and drink right now. Whoever believes in me… streams of living water will flow from within him (John 7:38).”
If I should say, “But Jesus, where can I find you?” You answer back even quicker, “Not in your strivings, not in your labors, not in your earnestness, not in your self-loathing’s, not in your vain promises… but only in the gospel. Open wider your heart to the gospel of my grace and I will overfill you with everything you need and more than you want.”
Even so and evermore, Lord Jesus, school me well in pant-theology, so very Amen, I pray, in your all glorious and all generous name.