Are You Thirsty?

Posted bySteven WalesPosted inWorshipTags:, , , ,

I thought my friends at Northwest Academy had it made: they went to a Christian school.  Sure, they had problems.  But NWA was not SHS.  At Sharpstown “the inmates ran the asylum.”  Good kids were surrounded by kids so broken they could hardly function.  It was brutal, a place of unrelenting violence.  Vicious fights quickly became riots involving hundreds of people.  There were shootings, police officers walking the halls, constant phoned-in bomb threats (fake), and arson that was all-too real.  There were smoking areas where students were ALLOWED to smoke, and there were teachers with problems ranging from burnout to pedophilia (my history teacher made history when he was fired after being tape-recorded offering grades for sex for the hundredth time). And binge drinking was not just for nights and weekends—some kids (and at least one teacher) got drunk BEFORE school….

In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, hippies dreamed of a world where young people could “Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out,” and Sharpstown fulfilled that dream.  Every benefit society could ask for from drugs, free love, and a lazy, “take it easy” attitude washed ashore at Sharpstown, a shipwreck of broken homes and broken lives. It was the darkest, most soul-crushing place I have ever been, and spending forty hours a week there left an ache in my soul.

I turned to Jesus.  What else could I do? I was a depressed, failing flunky.  My dreams were shattered (dreams, what dreams?)  College seemed the only way out, but I hated academics.  With no work ethic or self-discipline, I had no hope for success. But I knew God loved me and there had to be an answer. 

“Oh God, you are my God, and I will always seek you. I thirst for you, my soul longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water” Psalm 63:1.

Those kids at Northwest Academy did not suffer through the darkness of Sharpstown—but they also did not discover how badly—how desperately—every soul thirsts for God.

Sometimes it takes darkness to drive us to the light.

Your soul thirsts for God—feed it.

ΑΩ

Published by Steven Wales

Dad's Daily Devotional began as text messages to my family. I wanted my teenagers to know their father was reading the Bible. But they were at school by then. Initially, I sent them a favorite verse or an insight based on what I read each day. That grew into drafting a devotional readng which I would send them via text. I work as an attorney and an adjunct professor, and recently wrote a book called HOW TO MAKE A'S.

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