“For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring.
They shall spring up like a green tamarisk, like willows by flowing streams.
This one will say, “I am the Lord’s,” another will be called by the name of Jacob,
yet another will write on the hand, “The Lord’s,” and adopt the name of Israel.”

Isaiah 44:3-5

The Lord God can be counted on to pour out His Spirit on those who are thirsty for Him alone and not for lesser things. Water is often a reference to the Holy Spirit in scripture, dry ground is often a picture of those who are lacking the Holy Spirit. Here is the promise of our God to revive those who seek Him earnestly and diligently, above all other pursuits.

The question for us all is this: Most of us are very likely dry ground in a parched land, but are we thirsty ground? Here is the difference between those who will be visited by a revival from the Holy Spirit, and those who will keep soldiering on in the flesh, practicing vain religiosity. It is the thirsting after our God He seeks from us. It is the thirsty for Him upon whom He pours His Spirit.

“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

A.W. Tozer once observed that most church-goers have “…just about as much of the Holy Spirit as the want.” Though these live in a dry and parched ecclesiastical land, they are not thirsty. I believe this lack of thirsting after our God while living in dry and parched conditions characterizes most of the institutional church scene today. To thirst after God would mean the end of all self-controlled religiosity and rebellious self-living. We rebels will stay in our rebellion until we thirst to death if we do not repent of our rebellion.

The question then for us is this: Are we willing to become thirsty for the outpouring of the Spirit of our God?

His promise is certain, from Isaiah 41:17-20.

“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive; I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together, so that all may see and know, all may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.”