A Word about Soul Thirst

Today I want to share a word about soul thirst, as I comment on Psalm 63:1-8. This Scripture reads: 

O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.  Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Have you ever been thirsty? I am sure you have, and I certainly know I have had that experience. In fact some events and periods in my life are punctuated by the memory of an intense thirst.

Physical Thirst:

One of the first of these memories is when I was  a child and my father took my sister and me to the county fair. It was a lovely, but very warm, fall evening in the Deep South, and all was well until we went into the adjoining baseball stadium for the free variety show that came with our fair tickets. On the way in, my dad bought us popcorn, and the vendor must have sprinkled a pound of salt on my box. By the time the first act had finished, my mouth was burning from the salt and all I wanted was to drink something; anything! I barely paid attention to what I was told later was a pretty good show. All I could remember was my thirst.

A few years later, my dad had begun growing a garden each spring. When I say garden, I really mean a truck farm! Dad’s garden had multiple acre-long rows of corn, peas, beans, potatoes, and melons. I enjoyed the process of preparing the ground and planting during the springtime, but when it came time to pick the produce, it was a miserable experience for my tender young self. To avoid something he called “rust,” we could never pick peas and beans in the cool of the morning, so we had to wait until afternoon, after the morning’s dew had been boiled off by the noonday sun. Then in the heat of the day, we would go harvest the produce.  It probably wasn’t as bad as I remember it, but I do remember the terrible thirst I would experience on those hot, humid summer afternoons.

I still don’t know what this “rust”was that we were trying to avoid, so it must have worked. 

A third memory is from when we were missionaries to West Africa where, except for December and January, that part of the world is either extremely hot and extremely dry, or it is extremely hot and extremely  humid. Either way, we regularly experienced extreme thirst. I would drink water until my stomach felt like it would burst, and I could still feel thirst. My mouth gets dry just thinking about it!

On those occasions, and during others too many to name, I found thirst to be an overwhelming sensation to the point of obsession. When a person is truly thirsty, nothing else will satisfy their craving for liquid. When I think of the times when I was parched, my words fail me; I cannot describe the sense of desperation I have felt when overcome by thirst.

Soul Thirst:

In Psalm 63, the Psalmist described his desire for God as a thirst. He used the metaphor of physical thirst to illustrate how much he wanted to have God in his life, and how much he needed God’s help. Nothing else would satisfy him and he was driven to despair at the thought of not experiencing the Living Water. Nothing else would satisfy his cravings; nothing else could satisfy his soul.

In reading Psalm 63, the question comes to me, do we in the 21st Century church thirst for God? By observation, I would have to admit, sadly, that we do not. We treat our relationship to God more like getting a cup of coffee at a drive-through window than we do a person dying of thirst in the desert. No wonder we are never satisfied; no wonder we search for the next big thing; no wonder we look more and more like the world around us.

Another memory of my childhood, which I often share, is of my mom. She would prepare a wonderful meal for our family, with many delicious dishes. As we ate with gusto, she merely pick at her food. Sooner or later she’d say, “I’m just not satisfied.” Then she’d go to the refrigerator and get some sliced bologna, She’d pull off and toss away the red, stringy rind, and then dash hot sauce on it before folding the bologna into a slice of light bread. She’d sit back down and enjoy that simple food, and smile would spread across her face. For her that was a feast, and it satisfied her when nothing else would.

Are We Thirsty?

We need to get back to place where, like the Psalmist (and my mom), we know what really satisfies us, and then forsake all else to embrace it whole-heartedly. We should start with complying with Jesus’ commandments, such as,

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Are you thirsty, yet? 

Am I?

Every Blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt