An explorer in the Australian Outback was found where he had died of thirst. The party who discovered his body found these words scratched on his empty canteen: “The last thing I remember is pulling the saddle off and letting the horse go. My tongue is sticking to my mouth—lost for want of water—I can say no more—God help me.”
Now, if at that moment someone could have come to that man with water, do you think he would have hesitated to take it until sure he could drink in the right way? Would he have questioned whether he was thirsty enough or wondered if he might be unworthy of receiving it? Would he have tried to clean himself up a bit first?
No! Enough for him to see the water he so desperately needed, and he would grasp it at once.
It is so with the thirst of the soul. Whether it is from sin felt or God’s wrath feared or your disappointment with this weary world, one thing is sure: Your soul is thirsty and longs for happiness and rest. In this state of things Jesus Christ our Lord meets you with His full salvation. He invites you to come to Himself as water for the thirsty. “In Me,” He says. In Him alone you will find your desires met; you will find all that stills the guilty conscience and fills the empty heart. This is the “water of life.”
The Holy Spirit sees and takes care of your act of coming; you do not need at that moment to think or observe it at all. The Holy Spirit is at such a time pressing you to think altogether and simply of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit’s way of bringing a soul to Christ is to increase its thirst (that is, the unhappy, unsatisfied feelings of conscience and heart) to the point where the soul cannot take a deep interest in anything but Him who will relieve it by what He is as the Saviour. At such a time you are not intended to think much of what you are feeling and doing; your part is to be thinking of the “water.” “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:1717And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17)).
Listen to the good news from God Himself, the story that is “as cold waters to a thirsty soul,” the story of the One who bore our griefs, carried our sorrows and opened the floodgates of divine love. Listen to this good news till your satisfied soul can thank Him for the “water of life” He has provided.