How Do We Satisfy Our Deepest Thirst?

The body’s purpose is to serve the soul, not vice versa, hence the need to fast, pray, and practice generosity in sharing our time, talent, and treasure.

In the desert the Israelites complained to Moses, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock?” (Ex 17:3). They saw slavery as preferable to dying of thirst. Drought is a terrible calamity. Water is essential for everything that lives. Without it there’s no growth, only aridity and death. To deal with the people’s fear of suffering and death, Moses turned to God: “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me” (Ex 17:4). God responded and told Moses to use his staff and, “Strike the rock, and water will flow from it for the people to drink” (Ex 17:6). Moses does whet he’s told and water begins to flow for all to drink.

What It Means to Thirst

To thirst is to long for something that’s considered essential for one’s well-being. There are two kinds of human thirst, namely physical and spiritual. Often they’re in conflict. Physical desires seek earthly satisfaction, namely food, water, health, wealth, sex, power, status, and honour. The secular world would have us believe that satisfying the hunger and thirst for these will bring contentment. So we say, if only I had lots to eat and drink, money, power, popularity, etc., then I’d be happy. If that were true, why do physically healthy, wealthy, powerful and popular people become depressed and miserable? The simple answer is that these do not satisfy our deepest thirst. It’s because what they rely upon for their happiness can’t fulfill the needs of their soul, their inner self. As Puck, the mischievous elf in Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream said, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” We have a foolish tendency to invest on what is temporary rather than long-lasting. Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse” said, “The best laid plans of mice and men go astray/ And leave us naught but grief and pain/ For promised joy.” Why don’t the goods of this world satisfy us? Because this world is not our home. Because the creature has a deeper thirst that only the Creator can slake. We yearn for an ultimate meaning, contentment and purpose that finite things can’t give us. So as reasonable creatures we need to stop investing in what satisfies our superficial wants rather than our deepest needs.

Our Deepest Thirst

In the 5^th century St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.” As men and women, our deeper thirst and hunger is our soul’s yearning for a relationship with God. Just as a little child only feels at peace in the arms of the mother or father, so you and I can’t be at peace until we’re in the arms of our Heavenly Father. That is why the Lord’s Prayer is so assuring because we begin it by calling God “Our Father.” The Psalmist prayed, “O God, You are my God whom I seek; for You my flesh pines and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory” (Ps 63:2-3). God refreshes the soul by watering it with His grace through prayer, Sacraments, especially the Holy Mass, and sharing with our neighbor. A healthy body and a malnourished soul make a person jaded, joyless, easy pickings for Satan, abusive, and hopeless. The whole Epstein affair is a case in point. If I had to make a choice I would much prefer to have a well-nourished soul than a well-nourished body.

Who Can Nourish our Soul

Since God created our spiritual soul only He can nourish it. Our soul is the form of our body. Our soul symbolises our deepest and truest self directly created by God as the moment of our conception. We express our true self through reason and free will, which are faculties of the soul. Therefore, it follows that if the soul isn’t healthy our self isn’t healthy. Why? Because our intellect, our ability to think, and our free will, our ability to make choices, are distorted and dysfunctional, resulting in bad decisions and broken relationships. The Samaritan woman whom Jesus encountered at the well is a case in point. She came to get water to refresh her body when she met Jesus who offered her another kind of water that her arid soul needed. Her lifestyle reflected a starved soul that resulted in failed relationships as she looked for love in all the wrong places. Jesus, by His questioning, led her to look at her inner self and admit all her failed attempts to satisfy her deeper thirst for a free, just, peaceful and loving relationship. Only such a relationship nurtures the soul and it can only be found in a relationship with God. He watered her thirsty soul and refreshed it by leading her to Himself as her loving Saviour.

Raising Consciousness of an Arid Soul