“As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” Psalm 42:1-2 NRSV
Coffee is my addiction. Seldom do you see me without a coffee cup in my hand, half regular in the morning and decaf at night. Why? Because I’m thirsty? Probably not! It is satisfying my taste buds with a familiar flavor. It can be hot in the winter and made cold in the summer. It gives me something to do while I’m thinking about what I’m going to do. It’s a habit that fills a space.
I’ve heard it said that we have an empty heart-shaped hole within us that desires to be filled. Am I trying to fill that hole with liquid comfort?
When I’m thirsty, really thirsty, water is the best solution. Yet water is not my desire or need most of the time. Thankfully, plenty of potable is within reach when I need it unlike so many of our fellow earth dwellers who have no access or are saturated beyond use by floods as in Pakistan. Please pray and act for their relief.
The familiarity, the comfort, the action of drinking coffee is a metaphor for a deeper desire and need for a hole-filler within my life, every human life.
While our bodies are 98% water and we need eight big glasses of aqua every day, water by its self doesn’t provide wholeness, health, and happiness. But it does teach us a lesson about our deepest need; the one that coffee hints at but doesn’t provide.
The Psalmist reminds us in Psalm 42:2 (above) the most satisfying and sufficient filler-upper is God. God: Coordinator of past and future, Peace that passes all comprehension, mystifying Provider, Satisfier that requires constant re-satisfying. Like water is to thirst, God is to life and hope. What if daily I didn’t have coffee breath but had God-breath? Life would be more full, satisfying and hopeful.
To live with and project God-breath requires constantly drinking in God’s presence, grace, forgiveness and love then projecting it inward and outward. Faithful attendance to God’s presence becomes a constant sweet aroma of gentleness.
One of my regular God-filling stations is the annual SoulJourners Retreat. Thankfully, it is coming up September 14-16 in Colorado Springs. This year’s adult retreat offers deeper study into Psalm 42 and will “explore new prayer forms and spiritual practices as ways to tap into the wellspring of water God invites us to partake of.” To join in this life giving opportunity contact Ken Pinkham at: kenpinkham@gmail.com or on the ABCRM web site: http://www.abcrm.org/ministries/seniors.htm. Let’s satisfy our thirst together.
Dear God, give us hearts and minds to tap into your wellspring of wholeness. Amen
Carol Willard
SoulJourners Committee member
|
 |
-Read past thoughts-
