What Does it Mean to be Spiritually Thirsty?

I went and quickly grabbed myself a full cup of water and gulped it down. And then I went back for more. I didn’t realize how thirsty I had truly become.

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Growing up in the Church, I’ve always heard about being spiritually hungry or thirsty. I never really paid much attention to it until I became an adult and realized and experienced what it truly meant.

Recently, I went on vacation. My hopes were to spend time soaking up the sun at the beach and then coming home and working on items for my store. When we got to the beach, we realized that the weather was not going to cooperate with us, and therefore, in the interest of keeping busy and not being holed up in a resort room with three bored teenage boys, we decided to experience some of the local attractions.

We kept busy alright. In fact, so busy and so out of my routine that I basically dehydrated myself this whole week. Today was my first day back to work, and I sat down and found it hard to concentrate because my body feels so fatigued and depleted of water. I went and quickly grabbed myself a full cup of water and gulped it down. And then I went back for more. I didn’t realize how thirsty I had truly become.

This reminded me of what it is like when we have been out of our spiritual routine or life distractions come and we don’t realize it’s been a while since we have been to church or been in the Word of God. Like really being in the Word of God, studying and reading. When we finally do pick up the Bible and start reading, it’s like we can’t get enough.

We start perking up and realizing things we haven’t realized before. And then we remember that God said something in another book about this very thing and this very thing applies to our life right this very moment. We flip the pages and flip some more and pray as we are reading. We can’t get enough. We have been spiritually depleted of the good stuff.  The stuff we need to keep ourselves spiritually motivated and driven and alive.

I don’t know about you, but when I haven’t been in the Word for a while and I pick that book up and things start popping off the page and the Lord starts speaking to me, I find myself with new energy. A new excitement deep down in my soul. It makes me want to go out and be a fisher of men. I gain new ideas and I am ready to go out there and share the good news.

I know that being in a routine day after day can get daunting after a while. Just like making sure we keep up that water intake daily. However, it is so vital and important we do. We need to stay healthy both physically and spiritually so that we are an effective Body in the Kingdom of God. How is God able to use us if we are dragging ourselves around with no energy or zeal?

“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them'” (John 7:37-38, NIV).

As a tree needs water to produce fruit, so do we need living water to produce spiritual fruit. We need sun and water. For us to make sure we keep up our water intake on a regular basis, we need to be intentional. The enemy will try to distract us any way he can so that we are not taking care of ourselves. We need to make it an act of conscious effort to make sure we do not get to the point of dehydration or starvation.

 

 

Featured Image by Luemen Carlson

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About the Author

Valerie Close has a passion of encouraging others with the truth from the word of God and her own personal experiences. She is faith-driven and a seeker of truth with a real heart and compassion for other people to come out on the other side with a new hope and revelation of Jesus Christ.