Sometimes You Just Need a Drink.

“If you're thirsty, you may drink.”

For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, 

“If you are thirsty, come and drink.” 

She realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like a man's. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

“I'm dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the Lion.

“May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to - do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."

"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

I am nearing the end of my time here in Katunga. That is a strange thought indeed, for it seemed like yesterday I arrived here, mind clouded and in need of something more than what I knew, a rest for my soul, a time to not strive to be, but just be with God. A time to ask, to seek the Truth of Jesus Christ, whom I had heard of my whole life but am only now coming to really know in my very heart of hearts. 

I have changed, you see. I have learned to rest. To boil all the churchy lingo and theology I knew down to the simple joy of knowing Jesus and abiding in Him alone. To not love humanity or even every person, but just the person that is in front of me in this moment. To love when it's illogical and irrelevant. To seek not the God of America or the Church or Christianity, but the God of the Universe, of eternity and time and space, Creator of man's curiousity and longing. To abide in the knowledge of who He is and the passion of His love.

But most of all, I have become painfully aware, now more than ever before, of the Great War within my soul. There has always been a battle in man's soul between the world and his God. For as much as we deny it, we love the world and all that it holds for us. It was and is the fall of man: that we chose the world over our only True Love. Though I have come to know the Perfect Love of the Father in Heaven, I feel the draw of the world and its gold. I hear the call of it, loud, lustful, dark and beautiful. I feel the new woman I am in Christ fight tooth-and-nail against the angry, selfish, old woman I was before I found the Great Love... The I in me who so often yearns for shadows.

We think that by living as the world does we will find some answer to the emptiness in our souls, our thirst for purpose and meaning. We think that somehow, we can do both: live with one foot in the shadows and one foot in glory.  But though we give the world everything it asks for, it will not release us. It gives us exactly what our lustful flesh desires, only to break our minds and waste us until we are numb and there is nothing left to love.

And yet I see Him now, ever-increasingly my true Reality: the Lion of Judah. He is the answer we seek, the only way we can feel whole again. He is the only Stream. The Living Water. The need for Him is transcendent of time and culture. It disregards age and qualifications and beauty. He is the destination that every human soul seeks. I may choose to fill myself with the things of this world that I know will leave me dry, but there is no answer in them to the many questions and deep longings in my heart. There is no other way to quench the thirst in me than by the Living Water, Jesus Christ my River, my Everything.

When a hungry man dreams,

He looks, and eats

But he awakes, and his soul is still empty.

When a thirsty man dreams,

He looks, He drinks,

But He awakes,

And his soul still thirsts.

But when I dream,

I dreams of You,

Of a song in the night

Of gladness, dance, celebration

on the mountain of God,

of rivers and streams 

flowing from every high mountain,

of bread enough for all nations,

Born from the increase of the earth,

Of rain to grow that which has been sown

Of ears and eyes to open to truth and understanding,

Of a tabernacle that cannot be shaken,

Of a city on a hill for the broken to come,

Of a road that the redeemed walk.

And I awake

And You are still with me,

And hunger and thirst finally cease.

Live thirsty today and always.

Love,

B