Our Thirst for God is a Sign of Our Belonging to Him
He has caused my soul to taste of Him.
This is the wonder that I can forget along the way—the wonder that He came to remind me of today.
Perhaps the accusation that most rises in our hearts—in my own heart—against the Lord Jesus is that He is far, that He is indifferent and removed. It’s so easy to focus on the distance that we feel or the measure of lack we perceive and to neglect the poignant reality that is driving the longing for more of Him. And this is what He reminded me of again today.
He has caused my soul to taste of Him and that tasting was such that it enabled me to lose my taste for the world and reach for Him alone (Jer. 2:13). I have tasted and seen that He is good, that His lovingkindness is better than life (Ps. 34:8; 63:3). I am one who can say that I have tasted of His kindness and I believe He is precious (1 Pet. 2:3, 7).
And this is the cause for marveling, for tenderness, and for gratitude. Who am I that He would win over my soul like this? Who am I that He would so value and choose me as to offer me this longing, aching, delighting—that He would allow my soul to be begotten into a living hope and caught up in Him alone (1 Pet. 1:3)?
In all of my desire for more of Him, and my perplexity at His delays, I had nearly forgotten the sheer sweetness of the gift it is to be one who has wounded with His love.
The Taste Beneath the Thirst
For all the everlasting ages, I will marvel that He brought me into this loving, this knowing, this delighting. That He would bestow upon a weak one such as I, this communion with Himself. A thirst that refuses comfort from any other source, that finds a way to let every other gift and pleasure to be but escorts into His better-than love (Song. 1:2). A reach that is not pacified by even the highest of worldly attainments, but outstretched toward Him alone (Ps. 77:2).
When times and seasons look different than we planned and circumstances don’t play out as we desired, it’s amazing how easily our hearts can accuse the Lord. The focus goes to His seeming absence, the pain over the delay or the confusion as to the tarrying. And some of these wantings are right and part of loving Him.
Yet as we yearn for Him and His inbreaking, let us remember that there is no thirsting without a taste beneath it. There is no desiring without a delight behind it. We want to see Him because we’ve already beheld glimpses of His beauty. We hunger because His sweetness has already touched us to some measure. It was the Lord who passed by us—as it were—and touched us and left us thirsting for more of Him. He beautified our souls with desire for the only one who is uncreated beauty. He came to us or we would have no thirst to offer up to Him.
Our Thirst is a Sign of Our Belonging
Even our thirstings are signs of His finding us—witnesses of how we belong to Him. Thus, our desires for more of Him are to be both an aching and a thanking Him that He has not left us alone.
Our reach for more of Him is a simultaneous yearning out of our lack and satisfaction out of our fulfillment in Him. And it's in keeping this paradox together that we are shielded from the potential sting of accusation that can come in our reaching.
We are His. We belong wholly to Him. He has won our hearts for Himself. It is only right that we want Him with all of our beings. And in that wanting, it is only right that we remember that He wanted us first and has made us His by causing us to taste of Him and becoming ones who seek Him with all of our hearts (1 Pet. 2:2-3; Jer. 29:13).