Drink deep

On a hot summer's day, sun beating down incessantly, humidity climbing, trees silent as even the wind has found it too hot to work, aren't you thirsty and desirous of a large, cool drink? You can guzzle gallons of iced tea or lemonade, sweat beads cascading from the glass, ice cubes clanking to the bottom as you down the cooling liquid. Yet, you aren't satisfied, are you? You want more because the demands of the heat are telling your body it needs to keep up with these demands. I wonder if our spiritual heat were turned up a little if we'd find our spirits telling us to 'keep up' with the demands of getting deeper and deeper into the things God has designed for our lives? Maybe, just maybe, we all need the heat turned up a little more in that arena - so we'd drink deep of his grace and love - not just once, but over and over again!

Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:19-20 MSG)

Huge drinks of his presence - doesn't that say so much? Everything else is like 'cheap wine' compared to the intake of his presence. The thing about our spirit is that it is never 'sated' - it always desires more - but we sometimes ignore the desire because it isn't always the first desire of our heart. God 'built' us to desire his presence - to actually hunger and thirst for it. Yet, it is quite possible that we push aside that very real hunger and 'feed' some other hunger that urges us to do so in just a little bit louder voice. The 'cheap' infilling of whatever it is we substitute for his presence in our lives is going to leave us unfulfilled, though. There is no substitute for his presence and grace - his love is not able to be resisted for long.

Any excuse to 'feed' or get 'filled' - it doesn't matter how small the niggling to come into his presence is, we should never ignore it. The reason I keep my car radio tuned to Christian music is that even the slightest input of those words that come through those songs can fill and refresh at times when I don't even realize I have been thirsting for just a little bit of his presence in my day. It is quite possible I don't even know I am thirsty, but in that moment when the music comes on and my heart is turned for just a moment toward his face, I begin to be filled. The thirst isn't quenched totally in those 'casual encounters', but they keep me going until I am able to settle into a long, deep 'draught' of his presence. Maybe we need to take in a little more of him and settle into some long and deep moments with him a little more. Just sayin!