My Soul Thirst for Thee

Enthusiasm is an intense excitement of feeling. Unfortunately, we have seen enthusiasm for Christ wane since we have been in this pandemic for a year. Where is the spirit to serve God? Where is the excitement to come to his house and worship and praise God? Some believers have traded their enthusiasm for Christ for fear of dying. Many Christians in the past have faced hard times but refused to give up their zeal for the Gospel. They saw something beyond their trials and lived with a sense of abandonment: “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it” (Luke 17:33). Living in fear of the Covid virus is a losing proposition because the very life you want to save is being diminished.

Our satisfaction in life comes from Christ and him alone. In his book Harm’s Way, Doug Stanton tells about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis on July 30, 1945. It was hit by a torpedo and was sunk in 12 minutes. Nine hundred men survived the sinking but would have to endure four days and five nights without food or water. Only 316 men survived the brutal ordeal of no water and sharks, but the worst was the hallucinations.  The chief medical officer, Haynes, recorded his own experience:

There was nothing I could do, nothing I do but give advice, bury the dead at sea, and try to keep the men from drinking the water. When the hot sun came out, and we were in this crystal clear ocean, we were so thirsty. You couldn’t believe it wasn’t good enough to drink. I had a hard time convincing the men they shouldn’t drink it. The real young ones…you take away their hope, you take away their water and food, they would drink the saltwater, and they would go fast. I can remember striking them who were drinking the salt water to try to stop them.  They would get dehydrated, then become maniacal.  There were mass hallucinations.  I was amazed at how everyone would see the same thing.  One man would see something, and then everyone else would see it.  Even I fought the hallucinations off and on.  Something always brought me back.[i]

We, too, have to fight delusions of this world that tell us to drink this world’s water.  God is the only one who can truly satisfy our thirst.  David tells us how to quench our thirst: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2).

(Parenting with a Long View) https://bovdbrooks.com/

[i] Stanton, Doug. In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis,  Henry Holt and Co. Location 2275, Kindle Edition.