THIRSTY FOR GOD by Jim Cymbala

After a recent Tuesday night prayer meeting at Brooklyn Tabernacle, I was introduced to a pastor who was visiting with a small group of leaders from his church. I welcomed him and asked where he was from.

“Kentucky” he answered.

“That’s quite far from New York City,” I replied. “How long will you be here?”

“We are heading back tonight. I left at dawn this morning just to be in the prayer meeting.”

I was shocked. “Really? All that way for just one service?”

“Brother, I’m thirsty for God.” he said with all seriousness. “I can’t go on anymore. I’m worn out and burned out. I’m desperate for something from God’s Spirit.”

DON’T GIVE UP

As the pastor spoke, I couldn’t help but think of David’s plea:

You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water. 
(Psalm 63:1)

Have you ever felt dried out and run down in your Christian life? When that happens a lot of us just keep plugging away until we reach the point of spiritual exhaustion. Some folks give up and play the hypocrite, pretending to be someone they aren’t.

THERE IS REFRESHING

There is an old saying that is absolutely true: 

“If you run around, you run down, and then you want to run away.”

But there is a remedy to those dry periods when we have run around too much. It is found in what the apostle Peter called “times of refreshing” coming from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19).

Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.