Thirsty

...Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour (high noon). There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away.... (John 4:6-8)

Thirsty. I think about it and contemplate what it feels like, what it does to a person's mind and body, what it can motivate one to do.

Thirsty. Most of us experience thirst every once in awhile. But how often do we experience thirst to the degree that it becomes very vivid and focused, pushing aside other needs and concerns and riveting our attention to use all our resources to find something to satisfy our thirst?

Thirsty. It is something that can be felt only inwardly at first as a gentle reminder, but as it intensifies it becomes more evident outwardly. After a time the whole body gets involved and the face reflects and projects a clear message that we want a drink, we need a drink, we are desperate for a drink. Thirsty!

Thirsty. It can drive a person to insanity, to do things they would never consider doing under different circumstances. Thirst involves a deep, intuitive drive for self-preservation. Water is essential for human life. Our bodies are over 90% water and we need water both internally and externally to survive. So when we run short of water, especially internal hydration, our reactions are hardwired to activate all our circuits to begin focusing on finding and imbibing water immediately. It is a matter of survival.

Thirsty. Our minds can play tricks on us when we are thirsty. When a person gets thirsty enough in the desert they can begin to hallucinate and see all sorts of things that are not there. They may be fooled into believing things that are not really true. They may come to believe that something will give life and refreshment when in fact it may bring pain and death.

Thirsty. It is in fact a gift from God. If we did not feel thirsty and crave getting a drink when we needed it we could actually dehydrate and die without even knowing the reason why. Thirst is a good thing just like pain and other things are actually healthy but not pleasant. Pain alerts us that something is wrong and needs attention. Thirst is a little like that in that it amplifies our motivation to seek something that God designed for our bodies in order to thrive.

Thirsty. But for what? More and more people are being fooled into thinking that what their body needs is a drink of whatever it is they see advertised that will truly satisfy their deepest need for liquid refreshment. Marketers study this part of our psyche in order to fine-tune their advertising for financial enrichment. Chemists study the effects of different substances on the brain in order to introduce elements into our drinks to create a craving to buy more of their products so that we will become loyal to a certain brand. Alcohol has long been a product that exploits our desire to satisfy our thirst. It entraps the mind into an addiction and locks it into false reality while slowly destroying the body using perverted thirst to keep one coming back for more.

Thirsty. Is thirst only about water? Most of us are aware that we feel very similar cravings that are very similar to those that our body feels when we are thirsty. Our emotions feel a deep craving for satisfaction, affection, acceptance, affirmation just as our bodies have need for water. When a person is very thirsty and they are able to enjoy a big drink of cool, clean water, the intense wave of satisfaction that sweeps over the whole being is very real and memorable. We suddenly are reminded of what it is that really satisfies our deep longing – it is clean, pure water that our bodies need and crave. But it is not nearly so easy to be clear about the makeup of what can really satisfy our emotions and the deepest longings of the heart and soul.

Thirsty. The most frustrating thirst is the thirst that cannot be identified so it can be satisfied. Like hidden hungers, hidden thirst only tends to intensify when drink after drink only leaves you feeling more thirsty than before. We try to look for different mixtures in hopes of satisfying that craving of thirst only to find a few minutes later that the craving is still there. But now the problem is even more complicated because our stomach is so full that we can't try something else. But even though our stomach is full to the max our body still feels very thirsty. It is baffling, confusing, puzzling, almost bizarre.

Thirsty. What if we are really very dehydrated but don't realize it? What if our thirst has been so medicated that we no longer realize what our true need is? What if we are in fact drying up and losing touch with reality while all the time thinking that we are fine, that life is good and nothing is wrong? Maybe it is not such a bad idea to ask for thirst, to pray for thirst, to embrace thirst so that we can more clearly realize our true condition and take more deliberate measures to have our real needs addressed. One of the most important lessons to be learned in maturity is to become clearly aware of what really satisfies verses what simply brings pleasure. To neglect this task is to set one's self up for exploitation by addictions. Addictions are the false answers that masquerade and promise to satisfy the real needs and desires of the body and the heart.

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Soul thirst is a far deeper problem than the simple need to receive a drink of water. Soul thirst can become so intense that it will eventually overpower even the body's desire for essential needs at times. Soul thirst involves parts of our makeup and design that are far less identifiable to many people and so it is not nearly so plain how to satisfy this intense thirst of the heart.

Just like with physical thirst, the world has come up with all kinds of very appealing and promising attractions that claim to be able to satisfy our deep thirst of the heart. But as we try thing after thing, relationship after relationship but come up still feeling thirsty, often even more than before, we begin to think that maybe there is something inherently wrong inside of us that is causing this thirst. Maybe the problem is that we just shouldn't feel thirsty, that it is a false expectation or something, that maybe the best solution is to just suppress our thirst and try to get along as best we can without seeking to find a resolution for it.

Or maybe we go all out and try everything that comes along in a wild gamble that by trial and error somehow we will one day stumble across the right formula and finally feel whole and at peace. Since many can't even remember if they ever emotionally did not feel thirsty, at least since they were little children, they begin to think that this is just the way life is. They may decide they are going to just have to take it as it comes, get what they can extract from others to make themselves feel better and take the pain and consequences when things go sour. But a lot of deep wounds are created inside the heart along the way and the scars become very thick and the heart becomes hardened, filled with hopelessness, fear and despair. This is the legacy of living in a world filled with sin and its control over our thinking.

But what lies behind this deep thirst of the soul that all of us have, that is unavoidable even though many times it may not be obvious to us consciously? We generally can see that physical thirst is fundamentally focused on a need for H₂O and that all the alternatives are really enhancements or perversions of that. But what about the parallel thirst that burns in our hearts and stirs our emotions sometimes at most inconvenient moments? What is the real cause, the real thing that we were designed to receive that would truly satisfy this fundamental desire, this thirst that God designed us to have?

I know, I know – the pat answer that is supposed to be plugged into this spot is – love. All the world needs is love, right? We sing about it, we talk endlessly about it, we make movies about it, we play with it, make jokes about it and have come to the point where we begin to wonder if we really know anything about it.

In our culture (but we are not the first) we have largely linked the word love and many activities involving sex inextricably together. So when a person refers to love and our need for love, many automatically move in their imagination, if not in their conversation, toward thinking that what will really satisfy their craving of the heart is a more dramatic sexual encounter of some sort. One doesn't have to look very far to realize that a great part of the economy of the world is driven by this passion. Economics uses the fuel of emotional thirst along this line to drive the economy forward through advertising, entertainment and all sorts of other means whether the methods are legitimate or exploitive. This thirst of the heart that is assumed to be satisfied by sex in some way can be seen in nearly every product and in every culture.

But it is also quite obvious that sex at best is only a short-term fix for the deep craving of satisfaction for the heart. And short-term fixes are almost always along the line of an addiction rather than a true need. Addictions are methods whereby the brain is tricked into believing a lie about what really brings satisfaction. Something supplants the real object or experience that would bring true satisfaction and in its place offers an intense pleasure that causes one to forget or ignore the original hunger. But this pleasure is always much shorter than the effects of the real satisfaction that we desire and it also causes us to want to come back and experience that momentary pleasure repeatedly. But the problem is, the intensity of the pleasure wanes more and more with each experience. As a result an addiction will usually lead to a desire for something even more intense to try to get us back to that level of pleasure that we felt the first time we indulged in it. All the while the addictions are taking us farther and farther from having our real needs met and our original desires satisfied.

So instead of truly satisfying our thirst, most counterfeits only tend to intensify our thirst over time. This is the typical nature of sin and all of its deceptions. We are lied to about what will really satisfy, what will make us be more alive, what can cause us to thrive and what will bring more life into our lives. But because lies don't look like lies when they appeal to us, we believe them and fall for their promises. But their promises can't deliver the life that God can give us and so we find ourselves in the mad clamor of life trying to get life for ourselves while generally employing methods that drain life from others. Of course, because all of us are caught up in this madness, we are also on the receiving end of others trying to drain life from us so that they can feel more alive. Thus we find ourselves like so many fleas trying to suck blood from other fleas while all the time hoping that the others might actually be a source of life for us – like a big dog.

But what is it that we really want and crave at the heart level? What is this thirst of the soul really longing for that will bring satisfaction that will be far more effective to help us thrive instead of the temporary pleasures that drain the life out of us? What is the real causes, effects and most importantly, the real answers or experiences that address this deep, intense thirst of the heart?

That is what I want to look at more next time.