What are you thirsty for?
For starters, this question isn't meant to be taken in its literal sense. We as humans have physical hunger and physical thirst that we need to fulfill in order to live. In a different sense, we have some sort of soulful, spiritual, or mindful thirst for more. No matter how much water, coffee, or any other liquid you drink in a day, you are going to be thirsty again in the days or weeks to follow. But in day to day life we spend a lot of energy thinking and doing different things. What is it in the past week that you've been thirsty for?
I think this is a question that can never be asked enough as we need to constantly be reprioritizing where our energy is spent. This past week I was reminded of this important question and I was awakened to some semi-destructive things in my recent life that I've put a lot of emotional and physical energy into. These destructive things can come in many forms, but for me it was an unhealthy discontentment for the money I was making, and the aggressive search for more. I just needed to figure out how to make more. While the initial motive of wanting to provide for my wife and I was innocent, the amount of energy I had been wasting, just wanting more, was definitely unhealthy and contradicting to the life that I believe I'm called to live.
While looking for ways to make more money may not be a destructive habit, the problem lies in the heart and motives. Before I knew it, I found myself down a path of envy and discontentment. This is not the attitude and worldview that God calls us to have. Instead, feelings of gratitude, thankfulness and patience have been the kryptonite that keep the negative motives at bay. Money will never satisfy me the way God can. Material things can never satisfy me in the way that God's spirit can. So instead of following the path of constantly wanting more and never being content, I'm choosing to be thankful and grateful that God has blessed my wife and me. He has blessed us our first year of marriage more than we feel we deserve.
So when asked what I was thirsty for, I was reminded that I was not only thirsting for the wrong things, but I was also awakened to my lack of thirst for God, and the Holy Spirit. By focusing all my time and energy on things that will never fully-satisfy, I am missing the feeling of true fulfillment that can only come from our creator. So what does it even look like to thirst for the Lord? Well, for me it looks like reinvesting in my personal prayer life; forcing myself to write down my own prayers and really spend chunks of my day learning about the one with all of the answers instead of wasting time coming up with my own. I still don't believe I'm thirsting for the Lord as much as I should be. I'm not fully grasping the concept of knowing the immense need to rely on Him; because I can try to figure out my own life independent from God, But at what cost? Why would I risk losing a blessed life that God has promised?
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
