X-alt: September 2011

We kick our new theme for the year ahead off with a look at what it means to thirst for God.  Although we’ll look at physical thirst another time, it does give us a few clues to what spiritual thirst is about.  Being really thirsty involves desperation and longing.  When we think about when we’ve been really thirsty and what it feels like to have that thirst quenched, it helps us to understand something of what verses in the Psalms like these are on about!

What is reflected in these Psalms is something quite simple – our souls are designed to thirst for God.  It should be that our natural desire then is to meet with him and spend time in his presence.  But what often happens, and we’ll look at this next month, is that we end up trying to satisfy this deep thirst with lots of wrong things.  And that is doomed to failure because only God can satisfy the thirst that is deep within us for him.

The verses we read raise questions about this thirst –

Where can I go to meet with the living God who I thirst for?  Where can I find him?

Well, there’s good news!  He is here.  In fact, he’s everywhere.  That doesn’t mean that sometimes we won’t have desert experiences where everything seems a bit dry and dusty and difficult – where we might not even sense his presence.  But the good news is that even when he seems far off, he is still there.  And whilst we all have these experiences, and God uses them to help us grow, I do not believe they are meant to be long term.

Usually, there’s no real reason why we can encounter him and enjoy his presence with us.  Jesus made it possible for us to experience God in a way that the Psalmists couldn’t have imagined.  He died on the Cross for our sins, so that by putting our faith in him those sins, which separate us from God, can be done away with.  When we put our faith in Jesus, we can have a relationship with God.  But that’s not a distant far-off sort of thing.  God comes and lives within us by the Holy Spirit.

We may still have desert experiences, but as the Holy Spirit works in us he will bring life.  When we read things like in this Psalm, we need to remember the incredible way that rain can bring life to the most desolate places.

God has put a thirst in all of us, which we can try and satisfy in all sorts of ways, but there’s only one person who can do that – and it’s God.  When we are in relationship with him, through faith in what Jesus has done for us, then the Holy Spirit will fill us to overflowing.  We don’t need to be thirsty for God, because he is here and will satisfy that thirst.  Our thirst is like that of a parched land – but when the rain comes, the desert will bloom.  It will be full of life.

If spiritual life is to be sustained, then it is important that we are continually watered.  That’s one reason we encourage you to soak in God’s presence, to spend deliberate time being refreshed by him without any other agenda – waiting on God and asking him to bring his life giving water to us.