Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander of the peoples. Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor.

-Parallel verse:
Matthew‬ ‭5:6‬
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

[This story is shared with review and permission from my wife, Cherish.]

‭‭When I think about thirsty people, I think of someone who is in the desert, has traveled a long ways, and has been out of water for a while now. And somehow, they come upon an oasis and find water. They care about nothing else initially, other than drinking that water. They don’t care how they look to others, if they are drinking the water in the approved fashion, or anything else; everything is focused on getting water by any means necessary. Spiritually, one of the thirstiest people I know is my wife, Cherish. It all started a couple of years ago when she and I were having more frequent arguments. For context, I had been to a leadership class called Like it Matters nine years earlier. And I had been trying to get Cherish to go ever since, as it was the place God drove out my fears and allowed me to set a risky and highly rewarding course for my life in him. Cherish, I could see, had some major blind spots (as we all do) in life. But she resisted even the mention of them. And they were holding her back. One day, after a argument that was pretty intense, she said to me: “Maybe we need to go to marriage counseling?” I said to her: “I will go to marriage counseling if you want to, but first you need to go to the Like It Matters class that I went to.“
Though she went with a little “kicking and screaming”, to her credit, she went. And the most amazing thing happened. She came back owning her sin and her blind spots, and she apologized to each person in our family for the ways she had not loved us well. She was so sincere! It meant so much. As she told about her discovery, she described how bitterness had crept up into her life and robbed her of her joy. She had become bitter about her circumstances: such as 1) not having the ministry interaction she wanted, or 2) being exhausted about having to work full-time outside the house and still raise five kids and manage our house. And this bitterness was impacting her relationships with those around her that she loved the most.
So, she repented of it all. She told us her plan to change. And she implemented it. She wasn’t perfect, but she was steadfast in implementation. She made a new life plan, and wrote it out and taped it to her mirror. And out of this repentance, God gave her joy. He also helped her realize how much she has missed while she was trapped in bitterness, and in the two years since then, she has been extremely thirsty to know and understand God and his ways. And God has rewarded her in the process. He has met her in closeness, he has granted her the desires of her heart, some of which are to be engaged In ministry and to full-time raise her children as a homemaker. And so she still pursues him with a hunger and thirst that is palpable; it is real. And it is bringing us closer and closer together in marriage, ministry, and impact with our kids. Just the other day she told me she wanted to go to a recovery class at church, so she could get to the heart of why she reacts in frustration more often than she’d like, mostly with our kids. What a great idea. But it takes a lot of humility and trust in God. Thinking back to this passage, truly thirsty people do not care how their drinking looks to others — it doesn’t matter at all. All that matters is that they are filled with the life-giving water of a relationship with Jesus. What am I filling my heart with today? Is it the things of this world or is it Godly things? How thirsty am I in seeking after dwelling with Him and knowing Him?
This passage asks the question: “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?”
It is a question that pierces me to the core. What do I spend my money and time pursuing?
Lord, thank you for the wonderful model of “EXTREME THIRST for you” I find in my wife. Help me to follow this model she has laid out. Teach me to have this passion in my heart more and more. And may this thirst for you attract others, as you say it will through your prophet Isaiah. May it attract them to your Saving Grace!