The Entire Thought

First Comes Thirst

Have you ever been truly thirsty? I’m not referring to the “I could go for a Coke" type of thirst but to the cracked lips, parched tongue, weak–in-the-knees, dizzy-in-the-head type of thirst that comes from going without water for an
extended period of time. Those who have had such a thirst can easily summon up gratitude for water; especially abundant, potable water. For those who have not, it is important to realize that such thirst is a regular occurrence for many in our world, and it becomes the responsibility of the satisfied to slake the thirsts of the needy. Today, Moses, the Israelites and the woman at the well call on us to consider the experience of thirst and to use that experience to deepen our longing for the God who alone can satisfy every human thirst.
Israel’s thirsts for identity, for security and for satisfaction of all its needs led the people to complain to Moses and to God. In the process of having their thirsts
satisfied, they learned that they were a people loved by God despite their faults and failings. They also learned that they were a people chosen by God and called to share in a special relationship; they learned that their life’s work would consist of witnessing truthfully and authentically to the God whose constant presence with them inspired them to faith and hopeful trust.
A distant descendant of the refugees from Egypt, the unnamed woman who met Jesus at Jacob’s well near Sychar had come there because of physical thirst. But she would leave that well with all her thirsts satisfied. Like Moses and the
Israelites, she would learn that God knew and loved her and that her life could be different if she would let herself be transformed by her encounter with Jesus. With her physical and spiritual thirsts satisfied, she witnessed to others of God’s power to change lives. All she needed to do was thirst and allow her thirst to lead her to the light of God’s life-changing truth.
God has placed such a thirst deep within each of us. If we allow it, that thirst can drive us to seek God, to do good and to be transformed into more accurate
reflections of our good and gracious Maker. “Our hearts are restless, O God, till they find rest in Thee," said Augustine, bishop of Hippo, in describing this thirst or inner longing. Similarly, in one of his books, author Sinclair Lewis described a young couple admitting to a nameless, unsatisfied longing, a vague discontent, an
awareness of something lacking that, as believers realize, only God can satisfy.
English novelist Warwick Deeping, in Sorrell and Son, offered a similar insight. In a conversation between Sorrell and his son, the boy says that life is like groping in a fog. For a moment, the fog breaks and you think you see the moon or
another’s face. Then the fog comes down and leaves you groping once again. For believers, this groping, this thirsting can lead to a more sincere searching for God, who longs to be discovered.
In recently published writings of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the woman now called the “Saint of Calcutta" named her thirst for God “a deep loneliness" and a “darkness" from which she longed to emerge (Come, Be My Light, Brian
Kolodiejchuk, ed., Doubleday, New York: 2007). Mother Teresa wrote that her thirst for knowing the joy of God’s presence was her “traveling companion," and she asked for prayers to be able to keep to her journey of serving God’s least ones: “Pray for me, for within me, everything is icy cold. It is only blind faith that carries me through for, in reality to me, all is darkness.” Despite her seemingly unquenched thirsts, Mother Teresa continued radiating God’s love and
compassion, for, as she said, she was only a “carrier of God’s love," and she was
compelled by “the love of an infinitely thirsty God.”
God’s thirst for us, our thirst for God — these are the factors that move us nearer to God and draw us deeper into the divine embrace.

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