Quench Your Thirst

My friend Laura Lynn and I went to Kentucky this weekend to visit some friends from Summer Project. From the 4 hour drive there and back, we really got to know each other even more. And apparently we didn't get enough of each other. After returning home last night, I went to her apartment to spend some time with her and we had many more great conversations. One of them in particular I wanted to share here, but Laura Lynn beat me to it. She did a great job of telling it, so I will simply copy it for you here. Great minds think alike, and  intern together at ETSU. Yep, we both just received our official placement as interns with Cru at ETSU! Hope you enjoy our take on Psalm 42:1-2 and look forward to many more blogs this coming year on the experiences God has in store for us!

Monday, April 2, 2012

True Thirst

"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?"

-Psalm 42:1-2

 

When I was in high school, we would have summer reading, and then we would have to write papers about the reading, sometimes research papers. Which, of course, frustrated me because it wassummer vacation! I love reading, but only when it's my choice to read. I hate being forced to read, especially when it's something I'm not interested in.

One summer, my friend Jessica and I went to the Nashville library to work on our reading and do research and write papers. I don't remember how long we there, but I remember getting extremely thirsty - the thirstiest I can ever remember being. My mouth was completely dry, and I ached; I hurt. I just wanted water. Nothing else. Just water. Coke wasn't going to satisfy me. Sweet tea wasn't going to satisfy me. Kool-Aid wasn't going to satisfy me. The only thing that could satisfy me was water. 

When I think of Psalm 42:1-2, that's the image I go to. That intense ache and dryness that only water can satisfy.

I was telling my friend Deirdre this (because we had been talking about the Coffee Cup Verses series we did at Cru, and that was one of the verses that was used.)

(I can't remember if Julia or Brad did the picture for the series, but I loved it!)

Anyway, Deirdre went on to compare God and water and other drinks:

Other drinks, like Coke or sweet tea or Kool-Aid or juice all have water in them. And they aren't necessarily bad for you - except in large doses. Like orange juice. Orange juice is good for you, but it also has a lot of sugar in it. (And I pointed out that it's terrible to drink orange juice when you have a migraine. Don't do it.) But orange juice and other drinks are like the things we try to satisfy ourselves with - even good stuff like group Bible studies or campus ministries or exercise or music or art. Those are all good things, and the Lord is definitely in those things, just like water is in those drinks. But there are times when our thirst is just so deep and so intense, that only water will satisfy. 

That chapter in Psalms goes on to say:

"My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me continually, 'Where is your God?' These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God."

-Psalm 42:3-5

That part in my Bible is stained with tears, because that's the chapter I go to during the hardest of hard times. When depression begins to kick my butt. When I just can't get out of a funk that I've been in for too long. (ahem, last semester...)

I love what I call "snotty prayers"; the prayers where I'm pouring my heart out to the Lord, and I'm so desperate for Him that tears and snot run down my face, and I'm disgusting, but I don't even notice because I'm intensely seeking after Him. 

I love them, because eventually I notice the puddle on the floor. Eventually I notice how much I need a tissue (or maybe 10 or so). And as I am in this raw state, a complete mess, absolutely disgusting, God looks at me and says to me, "You are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you!" (Isaiah 43:4).

"You are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you."

 "You are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you."

"You are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you."

Did you hear that yet? Even with snot running down our faces, even with all of our messiness, all of our disgusting-ness, even with our deepest, darkest secrets, the God of the universe looks at us withlove in His eyes! Even knowing those deep, dark secrets! In fact, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." (Psalm 51:17)

Beautiful. :) 

On a less serious note, even yoo-hoo can't completely satisfy us: