God’s thirst for you

Hearing the Divine Antiphon....

Spiritually speaking, there are two basic sorts of breaking. One is to be broken by the inevitable sin and ruin of this world, and the other is to have “lev-nishbar,” a broken heart, before the LORD (2 Cor. 7:10). The former comes from the vain attempt to find life in the broken vessels of this world (Jer. 2:13), whereas the latter comes from the realization of an incurable inner emptiness (Matt. 5:4). The soul finds eternal satisfaction desiring God’s righteousness, since God alone provides the vessel of “living water” we need to live (John 4:14; 7:38). We all must drink from God’s fountain of life, lest we suffer spiritual dehydration and death. “All who are thirsty, come to the waters...”

Are you haunted by an inner ache for love, joy, peace, and life? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt. 5:6). Such inner poverty is a disguised grace, and the desire for healing reveals the Spirit’s invitation. Faith begins with the recognition of what we really want, since only then will we come to Yeshua for the “bread of life” and “living water.” All we need is found in him, though we must reach out in faith to receive: “For without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists, and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb. 11:6). God rewards those who seek him out; he answers the heart’s cry; he responds to all who hope in his love and salvation. Therefore, as Yeshua said: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). We are not saved by faith in our own faith, but in the Reality and Power of the LORD God who does the miracle of raising the dead to newness of life.

So do you have the “gift of holy desperation”? That’s the very special blessing of needing God so viscerally that you otherwise will fall apart or even self-destruct apart from His ongoing intervention in your life... You pray because your very life depends on it; you believe because without God, you would be swallowed up in darkness. The fire on the altar was to be kept burning at all times (Lev. 6:12-13) symbolizing the “inner fire of the heart.” How blessed it is to be full of the fire of this inner need, this relentless groaning, this constant hunger and thirst for God and his righteousness! How fortunate we are to receive daily bread from the hand of our heavenly Father. King David cried out to the LORD: “I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land,” which (ironically) is the answer to God’s own love for David, and indeed for all of us. The Lord stretches out his hands to us upon the cross; he desperately thirsts for us to return to him and to know the depths of his love...

Here is something we may overlook when we think about the relationship between the law of God in relation to his grace: Sorrow for sin does not arise when we realize we have violated a lawcode, but when once we realize how we have wounded the heart of our Heavenly Father by turning away from His love... God demonstrates his great passion for us as he stretches out his hands to us in love; he thirsts for our communion with him!

Sorrow for sin does not arise when you realize you have violated a law, but when you realize you have wounded the heart of your Heavenly Father by turning away from His love...

Psalm 143:6

פֵּרַשְׂתִּי יָדַי אֵלֶיךָ
נַפְשִׁי כְּאֶרֶץ־עֲיֵפָה לְךָ סֶלָה

“I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
Selah.”