Your soul is designed to be satisfied in one thing, and one thing only: the Lord God. All other earthly pursuits to quench your soul-thirst do just the opposite in comparison with God.
I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a little lesson about feeling thirsty.
Okay, so, take a minute to understand the idea, because at first glance, the feeling of thirst seems rather straightforward. Our mouths and throats get dry from talking, exercise, and we simply throw cold liquid down the hatch. Presto, we’re not thirsty anymore. But wait. The body thinks of thirst in a very different way. It’s not just a matter of your mouth or throat feeling dry. Feeling thirsty goes a lot deeper. Our internal organs have sensory nerves that monitor the level of water in them and if that level goes down, if the heart or liver, kidneys, lungs need hydration, those nerves signal changes to the brain. And the hypothalamus is the region of the brain responsible for monitoring those changes, and when it senses an increased concentration of minerals and salts in the bloodstream. That’s when you know you need water.
And our soul experiences its own kind of thirst. Psalm 63 says, “You, God, are my God; earnestly I seek you, I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you.” Now, on the surface, you might not know that your soul is thirsty. But deep down in your whole being [that inner most part of yourself] senses that something’s off balance. That deep, inner longing that you feel is simply the soul signaling that it needs to be satisfied—with comfort, affirmation, love. Now, as with bodily thirst, our soul can lack good judgment as to what will best satisfy us. We think our soul can be quenched by the opinion of someone special. Or we will look to things we covet and swallow those. We’ll immerse ourselves in work, thinking that our labors will quench that deep longing. But these things only satisfy the surface need. Not the deep-down need that’s far more critical. Our soul wants something more.
And boy, I’ve experienced that. And I just bet you have, too. It’s like this: I’ll be blessed by some marvelous insight from God’s Word. And it inspires and refreshes my heart. I feel so close to God, so near to him, so grateful. And before you know it, I find myself cruising on that grace-filled moment or those wonderfully spiritual feelings. It could’ve been yesterday, or the day before. And even though I can still recall the insight or whatever it was I gleaned or gained from the Word; I can sense I’m a little dry. And if I ignore it, the next day I sense that I’ve lost fellowship with God. I can feel it in my soul. My innermost being is parched, just like it says in Psalm 63. I realize my mistake; I was cruising on really good spiritual feelings. But not on God. I know I need God and his fellowship.
Our souls were designed to be satisfied in one thing, and one thing only: the Lord God. All our other earthly pursuits to quench our soul-thirst do just the opposite in comparison with God. The things we think will quench our longings are simply laden with more “salt.” The mineral and salt of self-doubt, covetousness, and pride. Only God is pure, clean, and deeply satisfying to our soul. Only God meets every need. Only God ends the hopeless search for the soul’s true comfort, and affirmation, and love. Only God. So please, keep those two words echoing in your heart today. Only God. Only Jesus. He is the only one is – Jesus is the living water. Drink of him [as it says in the Gospels], and you will never go thirsty.
© Joni and Friends