THE THREE KINDS OF SPIRITUAL THIRST
Thirst of the Empty Soul
The natural,
that is, unconverted man or woman has an empty soul. Devoid of God, he is
constantly in pursuit of that which will fill his emptiness.
The range of his mad scramble may include money, sex, power, houses, lands, sports, hobbies, entertainment, transcendence, significance, education, etc., while basically "fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind" (Ephesians 2:3). But as Augustine attested, "Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." Always searching and never resting, the empty soul turns from one pursuit to another, unable to find anything that will fill the God-shaped vacuum in his heart.
The range of his mad scramble may include money, sex, power, houses, lands, sports, hobbies, entertainment, transcendence, significance, education, etc., while basically "fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind" (Ephesians 2:3). But as Augustine attested, "Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." Always searching and never resting, the empty soul turns from one pursuit to another, unable to find anything that will fill the God-shaped vacuum in his heart.
Thirsting
and searching, the empty soul is blinded to his real need. Nothing or no one on
earth fully and lastingly satisfies, but he doesn't know where to turn except
to someone or something else "under the sun" (as opposed to the One
beyond the sun). Like Solomon, he discovers that no matter who or what he at
first finds exciting, ultimately "all is vanity and grasping for the
wind" (Ecclesiastes 1:14).
A Christian
observes the man with the empty soul and knows that what he is looking for can
be found only in the One who said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I
shall give him will never thirst" (John 4:14). Occasionally an empty soul
searches in more serious-minded or spiritual ways that lead some Christians to
think that he is thirsting for God. But the world has no such thirst.
"There is none who understand," God inspired both King David and the
Apostle Paul to write, "There is none who seeks for God" (Psalm 14:2
and Romans 3:11). Until and unless the Holy Spirit of God touches the spiritual
tongue of the empty soul, he will never want to "taste and see that the
Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). Just because a man longs for something that
can be found in God alone doesn't mean he's looking for God. A man may pine for peace and have no
interest in the Prince of Peace. Many who claim they are questing for God
are not thirsting for God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture, but only for
God as they want Him to be, or a God who will give them what they want.
The
irony of the empty soul is that while he is perpetually dissatisfied in so many
areas of his life, he is so easily satisfied in regard to the pursuit of God.
Thirst of the
Dry Soul
The
difference between the empty soul and the dry soul is that one has never
experienced "rivers of living water" (John 7:38) while the other has
and knows what he is missing. That is not to say that the dry soul can lose the
indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, indeed Jesus said that "the water
that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting
life [John 4:14, Another cause of spiritual dryness in the child of God is
what the Puritans used to call "God's desertions" Regardless of the
cause, the dry Christian soul is like the believer of Psalm 42:1-2, thirsting
for God "As a deer pants for the water brooks." When you are in this
condition, nothing else but the living water of God Himself will do.
Thirst of the Satisfied Soul
Unlike
the dry soul, and as self-contradictory as it may sound at the moment, the
satisfied soul thirsts for God precisely because he is satisfied with God. He has
"taste[d] and see[n] that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8), and the
taste is so uniquely satisfying that he craves more.
The
Apostle Paul personifies this in his famous exclamation, "that I may know
Him" (Philippians 3:10). In the preceding lines he has been exulting in
his present knowledge of and relationship with Jesus. He announces, "But
what things were gains to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”Yet indeed
I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them
as rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (3:7-8). Then, just one verse later,
the apostle cries out, "that I may know Him." Paul was soul-satisfied
with Jesus Christ, yet thirsty for Him still.
Thomas
Sheppard, founder of Harvard University and an influential New England
minister, explained the cycle of satisfaction and thirst this way: "There is in true grace an infinite
circle: a man by thirsting receives, and receiving thirsts for more."
In
our next series we shall be looking at steps to ignite spiritual thirst and the
benefit for thirsting for God.
WHICH
CATEGORY DO YOU BELONG TO?
By Godsent Omon
No comments:
Post a Comment