Standing Firm in Unsettling Times: A Five-Day Devotional by Skip HeitzigSampl

 Quench Your Thirst with God's Peace  

There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, just at the break of dawn. The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. —Psalm 46:4-7

In contrast to the tumultuous floodwaters in the previous verse, here we see a satisfying, flowing stream. Water is vital to life. Jerusalem's water source was the Gihon Spring, located outside the city walls. This made it easy for an enemy to block off their water source. Every citizen of Jerusalem would have perished from thirst if the city had not been able to access this source. 

But one king, King Hezekiah, planned ahead. He ordered a conduit built from the spring into the city, and ordered the spring covered over so the enemy would not know it was there. Even in the midst of siege, the inhabitants of Jerusalem were "made glad" and sustained by the availability of water.

Our nation's people are thirsty. We want purpose in life. We want satisfaction. And we so often look for it in everything but the Lord. But as Jesus said to the woman at the well of Samaria, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:13-14). Later, Jesus told an audience in Jerusalem, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:37-38).

From what spring have we been drinking? Could it be said of us, as God said through Jeremiah to Israel, "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13)? Only by drinking of the Living Water, Jesus Christ, will we find peace.