Thirsty

There is a great old hymn that says……
 
All my life long I had panted
For a draught from some cool spring,
That I hoped would quench the burning
Of the thirst I felt within.
 
I’m convinced that song describes millions of people this morning.  Searching, looking, hoping for something (anything) to fill the emptiness.  They are searching for something to give their life meaning and purpose.  Something to quench their insatiable thirst.  Yet, so often they are looking in all the wrong places.
 
Such was the story of a lady named Darlene Lehmer, whose testimony was recorded recently in Decision magazine.  Darlene says she was raised in a Catholic home and she was always religious.  Even as a child she would often stop at her parish church to pray on her way home from school.  But Darlene says, “it never seemed to help.  I didn’t feel any different.”  She says, “I wanted to know God, but He seemed so distant, so far away.”
 
Once when she was 10 a famous Bishop visited their little parish and while he was there he blessed some holy water.  Her grandmother sent her to the church to buy some of that holy water to put in some little vessels she had in her house.  Darlene says she ran all the way to the church, but she walked home much more slowly.  She was thinking hard.  She so much wanted to be accepted by God.  So impulsively she drank the holy water thinking it might help.  Her grandmother couldn’t be angry with her because she understood the desire of her young heart to be clean and to know God.  Yet, nothing seemed to satisfy that inner longing.
 
Darlene would spend the next 20 years looking for something that would quench her spiritual thirst.  High school and dating, getting married, having a family, working hard in the church; none of these things offered lasting peace.  Nothing seemed to satisfy that hunger, that thirst, that longing within.
 
Then one day her mother-in-law invited her to go to a Christian Women’s Club meeting.  A missionary was speaking and in clear, loving unmistakable terms pointed them to the cross.
 
Listen to what Darlene says “I understood for the first time the meaning of Christ’s death.  I realized that I should have come here to the cross a long time ago.  I knew that the thirst of my soul would be satisfied here.  I accepted the love and forgiveness of God with tears of joy and I trusted Christ and His sacrifice for me.”
 
Have you found that joy, that peace, that sense of fulfillment?  Have your sins been forgiven?  Has your thirst been satisfied?  It can be IF YOU COME TO THE CROSS.
 
The rest of that great old hymn says:
 
Hallelujah! I have found Him
Whom my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfied my longings;
Through His life I now am saved.
 
 
 
Have a great week!
Pastor Barry
 
 
 
If you would like to comment or if you have questions for Pastor Barry you may direct those to bglawson75@gmail.com.   We would love to hear from you.