Thirst

Yesterday Gianna and I went to her friend Madison's birthday party at the Livonia rec center. We had a ball for hours in the pool. As we drove home, it was cloudy and cold and I felt kind of blah. Just a kind of empty, slightly unpleasant feeling. Kind of like I used to feel most of the time, but milder. I came home, put Gianna down for her nap, got my bible and crawled in bed. As I read the words of the Lord I began to feel better. Not just ok, but good, warmed by the light of the Lord. The cold grey of the day fading away.

And I read the words "Blessed is He who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, for He shall be filled."

I just kept rolling those words around in my head, and as I half dozed, the following came to me.

We can't go very long without becoming hungry or thirsty. We need to eat food and drink water very regularly. Just going six hours without and we start to not feel good. An unpleasant feeling causes us to seek out food and water. God made us this way so we don't die or become sick and malnourished.

And I thought hmmm, perhaps when I get those blah, slightly empty feelings, that is totally natural. Not really that something is 'wrong', but that it is hunger pangs naturally inside of me to keep me seeking out God's word and presence. Because whenever I do seek Him as a result, I am refreshed and filled and comforted just as surely as when I'm thirsty and I drink a glass of water my thirst is quenched.

And as I look over the whole of my life. I spent the majority of my days with some degree of feeling empty, depressed, or unsatisfied. And nothing could satisfy it for more than a few hours or a day or so until I was blessed with truly experiencing the awesomeness and power of God 5 years ago.

I think maybe my whole life I was 'hungering and thirsting for righteousness', but I didn't know what I was hungering for, so I kept trying to satisfy that desire with stuff that made it worse.

(And I think I still subconciously try to fill that emptiness with food. Those moments where I just don't feel satisfied, feel a need to 'do something', need something different to make that moment better, and on autopilot I walk to the fridge. And the thought of trying to fill emptiness or hunger meant for God's presence with a big greasy piece of pizza, yikes.)

Jeremiah 2:13
...They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. 

God is so good. He provides everything we need. And fills our hearts with joy if we are just willing to let Him! And what more do we humans want than joy. We often end up causing great destruction in our lives trying to seek it, when its always right there, in its greatest, purest form.

I feel very blessed to have been shown what I was hungering for : ) Blessed to know that satisfaction is always a page or a prayer or a word away. I pray all my loved ones will come to know the same!

And have to share Psalm 63, the words of King David, which I think go along with this. (And have to share that where he speaks of his enemies who try to destroy his life, I think of the enemies that have tried to destroy mine, such as fear, anxiety, worry, self-defeating thoughts, depression, etc.)

Psalm 63

A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

 ¹ O God, you are my God,
       earnestly I seek you;
       my soul thirsts for you,
       my body longs for you,
       in a dry and weary land
       where there is no water.  ² I have seen you in the sanctuary
       and beheld your power and your glory.
 ³ Because your love is better than life,
       my lips will glorify you.
 ⁴ I will praise you as long as I live,
       and in your name I will lift up my hands.
 ⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
       with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
 ⁶ On my bed I remember you;
       I think of you through the watches of the night.
 ⁷ Because you are my help,
       I sing in the shadow of your wings.
 ⁸ My soul clings to you;
       your right hand upholds me.
 ⁹ They who seek my life will be destroyed;
       they will go down to the depths of the earth.
 ¹⁰ They will be given over to the sword
       and become food for jackals.
 ¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
       all who swear by God's name will praise him,
       while the mouths of liars will be silenced.