Thirsty

Do we know what it means to be thirsty?  Do we know what it means to be hungry and weak?  I think many of us are blessed and have food and water that sustain us daily.  Unfortunately, that cannot be said for everyone.  Do we also know what it means to be thirsty, weak, or hungry in our faith?  Now this, I can relate to in many seasons in my life.

I have know days when I have planted myself in dry places or shallow waters and it has stunted my spiritual growth.  I've also quenched my thirst with the wrong things.  I've idolized running & relationships over my relationship with Christ.  Even though I've never experienced starvation & thirst physically, spiritually, I have.  We all go through seasons of dryness, yet God always sustains us to make it through.   





Sharon Jaynes (Girlfriends in God) talks about a women in John 4 and how she kept drinking from shallow streams, yet they never quenched her thirst.  She came to the well.  Jaynes says, "Jesus offered her freely flowing, resplendently refreshing water; water that bubbles up from the indwelling Holy Spirit and quenches every thirst, washes away every sin, and flows into every nook and cranny of our beings. He invites us to come often and drink deeply."

One important thing that I've learned is that being thirsty is not a bad thing.

In a blog called, Hunger and Thirst for God, the writer says, "To stop thirsting for God is to die spiritually; thus we must not allow anything to diminish our intense desire for the things of God."

We like digging our own wells.  We drink from the wells of the world, not the living water.  We will never be sustained through those means.

Gwenn Smith (Girlfriends in God) portrays this picture more clearly in a devotional she wrote.  She says, "We dig our own cisterns, broken cisterns, and expect them to satisfy our thirst and bring us contentment. We drink from the broken cisterns of materialism, position, wealth, popularity, stuff, relationships, rules and religion. We have faulty expectations that our kids, spouses and friends are meant to satisfy our heart-needs. The ultimate broken cistern, however, is our pursuit of purpose in life via things of this earth.
          
We were created to pursue God.
          
We were created to know God – to be satisfied in Him and Him alone.
          
To worship Him and Him alone."

So I ask myself daily, what am I filling myself with?  Am I pursuing the right things? 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6