“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jn. 4:13-14

One of the most inspiring examples of feasting on Christ when the disappointments of this world hit is Hudson Taylor. As a young missionary in China, Hudson fell in love with an orphaned missionary girl. However, the girl’s guardian forced her to write a letter refusing any contact with him, even though she had equal feelings for him. During those long months of waiting for God to make a way, Hudson wrote to his sister,

“I have been in much sorrow of late; but the principal cause I find to be want of willing submission to, and trustful repose in God, my Strength. Oh, to desire His will to be done with my whole heart …. To seek His glory with a single eye! Oh, to realize more of the fullness of our precious Jesus, …. To live more in the light of His countenance; to be satisfied with what He bestows, … ever looking to Him, following in His footsteps and awaiting His glorious coming. Why do we love Him so little? It is not that He is not lovely. ‘Fairer than the children of men!’ It is not that He does not love us: …. That was for ever proved on Calvary. Oh, to be sick of love for Jesus, to be daily, hourly longing, hungering, thirsting for His presence!”[1]

---

This Christmas, run to Jesus. Feast on Him. Live in, and devour, His Word, for it is our very life. Refuse to be satisfied with the emptiness of the “holiday cheer” that the world dangles before us. We have Christ! And as we feast on Him, others will notice His radiance in us.

[1] Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor in Early Years: The Growth of a Soul, 426.