Daily Manna · Day 318 · November 14
Water for the Thirsty
“For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”
I know your objection, because you have made it to me twice now. You said that feeling dry is not the same as doubting, and that people keep answering the wrong question. You still read your Bible, and you still show up, yet nothing lands. You said it was like talking in a room after all the furniture has been carried out. I have not been able to think of a better way to put it.
So I want to point at one thing in Isaiah, and then I will leave you alone about it. Look at who the water is promised to. It is not promised to the people who have recovered, or to the fervent ones, or to the ones who have got their morning routine working again. God says, "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground." Being thirsty is what qualifies you, and so does being cracked, dry ground. In this picture, dryness does not shut you out from the water. The dry ground is exactly where the water is poured.
Then watch how the second half of the verse explains the first, because Isaiah does this on purpose: "I will pour my spirit upon thy seed." The water was never about your mood. It is God's own Spirit. And the promise runs straight past you to the people who will come after you, which is worth knowing on the days when you cannot care much about your own case. Two verses on, He says, "One shall say, I am the LORD’s." That is someone not yet born, growing up in ground where God, and not you, did the watering.
So tell Him you are dry, in those words, before you do one religious thing about it. Then ask Him for His Spirit, and ask by name for the people who will come after you. Do it tomorrow, and the day after, and keep doing it in that order for as long as it takes. He is the One who promised to pour, and the thirsty are exactly the people He named.
And when something changes, or when nothing does, keep bringing it to Him. He has not grown tired of your thirst.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 318 is Treasures of Darkness (Isaiah 45:3).