During my discernment presentation someone asked me, “How do you thirst for God?” I still have no idea how to answer that question. I don’t know if I understand it, but I decided to Google thirst in the bible and here are some versus that came up.
Psalm 63: 1
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 42:2
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
Isaiah 49:10
They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.
Isaiah 55:1
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost”
Matthew 25:35
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
John 4:13-14
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
There is a difference between the old and new testament when speaking about thirst. In the old testament God is understood as someone or rather something that is out there. One must therefore do things to connect with that being. When they sin or are having a rough go of life, God is distant and their connection to God is lost. In the new testament and Isaiah, there is a focus on this thirst being something to quench. The focus is on quenching the thirst of others, rather than people crying out for thirst. And then in this last verse I present, we learn that Jesus will give us water so that we will never thirst.
I think I am not thirsty, not because life isn’t rough at times and God seems fuzzy in my life, but more because I do something almost every week that keeps me from thirsting–I go to church and partake in the Eucharist. I guess I would answer the question this way now: “when I am feeling parched I go to the table and partake in the breaking of bread and the prayers. For through Jesus I drink water that “becomes a spring of water welling up to eternal life”
Also, God is not a being out there, but well you know…with me, in me and all around me. So if God is in me, I might desire a drink of water, but I am never really thirsty. Even when I refuse to drink, God has forced my mouth open or put in an i-v and poured water into my body until I can go to the stream and fetch it for myself. My soul doesn’t need to thirst for the lord–thanks Jesus for building the spring of water welling up inside me.
Pursuing Call 