Food For Your Soul
by Reverend Hubermann Larose
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The Spring Of Living Water
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.” (Isaiah 55:1) [KJV]
About three thousand years ago, the prophet Isaiah was living among a people who aspired to happiness, but who was looking for it where it could not be found. They ran from one amusement place to another, spending their money for things that could not bring them permanent satisfaction. They thirsted for something the world could not give them. “The heart of man has a God-shaped hole,” the famous French mathematician Blaise Pascal said. It’s like Cinderella’s shoe that could fit no other young woman in the whole kingdom.
None but God can fill the hole in the human heart in a satisfactory manner. Hence this never-quenched thirst that the ungodly seeks so desperately to satisfy by drinking from the fountains of this life to find out, at the end of the day, that “everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.” (John 4:13) But there is a water that God gives and that can alone quench the thirst of a soul. “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)
Isaiah once stood in front of the people of Israel and broke the good news that an abundant spring of water is flowing for all those who thirst: “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.” (Isaiah 55:1)
The prophet also denounced the vanity, the emptiness, and the futility of the quest for happiness of the people: “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 your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” (Isaiah 55:2)
Doesn’t that sound strangely like what’s happening today? No generation has been so addicted to entertainment as ours. In a book written by Michael Cox and Richard Alm, titled Myths of Rich & Poor: Why we’re better off than we think, and published in 1999, the authors make the following observations:
“We’re allotting more time and money than ever to the pursuit of happiness (…) Recreational spending per capita jumped from $501 in 1970 to $1,650 in 1995, an annual average gain of 4.8 percent (…) Money spent on fun and games has increased from 5 percent of consumer spending to more than 8 percent.”
Happiness seems to elude modern man in the same proportion he invests his time and money trying to pursue it. Men and women today, with all the sophistications of the electronic gadgets, with the multiplicity of the entertaining activities or events, are more despondent, more depressed, more miserable than ever. The proof of that can be seen in the suicide rate that is found to be higher in industrialized countries – the countries where people can afford the increasingly high cost of entertainment – than in underdeveloped, poor ones.
Isaiah 55:2 could be formulated in the terms of this rhetorical question: “Have you found in life what you’re looking for?” In other terms: “Are you satisfied?” It’s the question that, across the millennia, the prophet is asking you today – you who are reading these lines. You have tasted all the joys the world can offer, but are you satisfied? Have these joys succeeded in filling up the God-shape void in your heart? For you also – whoever you are – a spring is flowing! The invitation has no restriction: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters!” The outcome depends only on the one who receives the invitation and not on the one who gives it. From the part of God, salvation is finished, but from the part of men it must be received, accepted. For that to happen, you must admit that you are thirsty, and you must come to the spring of living water.
Many are dying of thirst in front of this fountain of living water – maybe out of distrust. You may be thinking: “After I have drunk from so many fountains with no satisfying result, why run the risk of being disappointed again?” But allow me to tell you that the water Jesus offered to the Samaritan woman has amply proved its thirst-quenching power. Millions whose lives have been changed by Jesus Christ can testify that they have found in Him the peace and the happiness they have long yearned for. This peace and this happiness are also for you if you respond to the kind invitation the Lord extends to you.
Hubermann Larose
Associate Pastor
Si vous voulez lire ce texte en francais cliquez ici!