Come and Drink

Read Isaiah 55:1-3.

On a recent prayer walk through a dry creek bed, I cried out to God, asking Him to refill me with Living Water. My wife and I had lived in Russia for a decade. The mission field always brings plenty of circumstantial factors to bear, and I felt there were plenty of contributing factors—or excuses—for the spiritual desert I was in.

I felt heaviness on my weary soul while walking through the cracking ground of the creek bed. My pleas for Him to quench my thirst were still streaming from my lips when my eyes fell on a donkey standing in a nearby field. He looked up at me and stepped a few feet forward. Then lowering his head into a barrel, he began to drink. The words of Isaiah 55 immediately came to mind.

I had waited and begged God to restore my soul. He was waiting, persistently calling to me with a still small voice—muffled under the noise of my thirsty pleas—saying, “Come. Come to the waters I have for you. Come and drink. Come to me daily and be nourished by my Word.”

Speaking mercifully through a donkey, the Spirit graciously reminded me that though my salvation is a gift, my sanctification is a process—one that I too often take for granted. God has given me a role to play to drink daily and deeply of the waters of life. My survival in ministry and soul-satisfying sanctification depends on it.

Lord, we’re grateful that Your Spirit speaks to us through Your Word and the World around us. Let us come to the Your waters for satisfaction today. Amen.

-from a missionary to Russia