THIRSTY BEINGS

We are thirsty beings!  Selvyn Hughes puts it like this:  "God has made us beings who are dependent on Him and has put within every one of us a thirst which only He can satisfy.  A failure to recognise that we are thirsty beings, dependent on God for the satisfaction of the great longing that He has created within us will lead us to think more  about our behaviour than what motivates it.  Often moral lapses or improper behaviour can be explained in terms of a person trying to quench the deep thirst that God has placed within them in ways that are independent of Him".

GRATIFICATION

This thirst drives non-believers as well as believers.  It manifests itself as a longing for something more - fulfilment, purpose, meaning to life etc.  People attempt to gratify that longing through various means:  the pursuit of wealth, power, status; building business empires; undertaking great projects; through carnal pleasures; alcohol and drugs.  In Ecclesiastes, wise King Solomon says he tried wisdom, the pursuit of knowledge, pleasure, wine, great projects, wealth, music, power and status.  He denied himself nothing but in the end he realised it was all meaningless - simply chasing after the wind!  "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure.  My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labour.  Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 2 10-11).  Only God can satisfy the thirst within us and any attempt to satisfy it independent of God is futile, misplaced dependence on self - and that is rebellion against God which is, of course, sin.

CHRISTIANS AND NON-CHRISTIANS

Christians are just as prone to falling into the trap of misplaced dependency as non-Christians.  Christians sometimes say: 'God told me to do this or that' and then when they think they see an opportunity to achieve their goal themselves, they go for it and disaster results.  Abraham and Sarah did this when God promised them an heir.  They decided they could see a way to fulfil God's promise through the maidservant Hagar and their plan resulted in pain and hardship for many.

TWO SINS

In Jeremiah 2:13 God says:  "My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns; broken cisterns that cannot hold water".  God mentions two sins  (1) forsaking God's supply; and (2) seeking to satisfy their thirst independent of God.  The result is failure.  Here God cuts to the very core of the human condition and says that problems between Him and His people arise because they prefer to drink from wells of their own making, rather than draw in absolute and utter dependence from Him.  Why should someone prefer to walk past a spring of fresh, clean, clear water at which they can drink freely, and instead go and dig a well of their own?  It is because our carnal nature, which is so deeply committed to independence, abhors feeling helpless and so rather than admit our dependence on God, we are prepared to go to extraordinary lenghts to provide for ourselves.  But our own provision won't satisfy.  It is misplaced and sinful.

CARNAL NATURE

In Romans 8:5-8 we are told: "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;  the sinful mind is hostile to God.  It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.  Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God".  Because our fleshly, carnal nature hates the feeling of helplessness we experience when we recognise our dependence, we tend to pay mere lip-service to the truth whilst actually trusting more in ourselves than in God.  Our faulty misplaced dependence on our own strengths is at the heart of most of our problems.  "Consider then and realise how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of Me" (Jeremiah 2:19).

HOW DO WE PUT THINGS RIGHT?

So what can we do to halt our prideful independence and return to trusting in God?  We need to come to a place of radical repentance that involves admitting that we are powerless to make our lives work by ourselves (or in Jeremiah's words to "slake our thirst at wells of our own making").  We then need to make a determined commitment never to move away from the position of full dependency on God again.  We need have no fear of being totally dependent on Him because that is the place where our true security and happiness lies.
"Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my Name.  He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him.  With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation" (Psalm 91: 14-16).