Thirst
“In our lives we grow thirsty and tired. We thirst for so many things and then when we receive them we are still surprisingly unhappy. Think for a moment of the multitude of pop stars and actors who had everything, fame, fortune, influence and yet they were not happy and kept running to try to satisfy the thirst even more and typically because they ran towards the wrong things they found this thirst was never satiated. They grew even more thirsty and they would follow these urges towards their own destruction, often through broken relationships and drugs among other things…Many today think feeling hunger is always negative. We want to constantly indulge our every desire, and yet the Lord calls those blessed who experience hunger and who thirst for righteousness. We hunger and thirst for something we don’t have. Our culture often says numb the pain. Stop the hunger. We then endeavor to avoid the pain of hunger through overindulging in food, drink, shopping, or drugs, which only cause other pains. Many addicts admit their overindulgence was an attempt to avoid feeling the pain of emotional hunger.” (Fr. James Guirguis, Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“The Lord said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’” He uses the image of living water to describe what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even as He did with St. Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well. Our risen and ascended Lord did not send theological ideas, moral instructions, or spiritual practices to His followers. After His Ascension, the Savior sent the Holy Spirit to quench the deep thirst, the primal longing, of all the broken, confused, and alienated people of the world for sharing personally in the eternal life of God. Nothing else can truly satisfy us as those who bear the divine image and likeness. So much of our pain and misery stems from obsessively seeking fulfillment in created things that can never provide it. Doing so only enslaves us further to our passions and separates us from one another. It leads to bitter disappointment time and time again.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“…every experience of thirst attests to the existence of the object of thirst. Thus, thirst for water means that one can find water. It is impossible to thirst for something that doesn’t exist. Thirst for love means that love exists, even if we have rejected it. In the same manner, thirst for renewal, transfiguration, and resurrection suggests that all this does exist. Renewal is impossible without Him Who renews life.” (Priest Valery Dukhanin)
“The Baptizer thus uniquely prepares human hearts to see Christ Jesus as the very God who transforms men’s lives by opening “rivers in the mountain and fountains in the midst of the plains. I will make the desert into marsh-meadows, and the dry land into aqueducts” (Is 41:18). He teaches us to turn to Christ as the One who truly quenches thirsting hearts, if only we would unite ourselves to Him and abandon our frenzied and futile efforts to make this world satisfy our thirst.” (Dynamis 8/28/2019)
“As seen in Christ’s Passion and His whole Providence, God deeply desires our salvation; we must also have the desire ourselves. Just as the good God hungers and thirsts for our salvation, so too must we hunger and thirst for it. As one who hungers for bread and thirsts for drink desires them, so we must desire and seek salvation.” (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk)
“A driving thirst for God is our starting point. Such thirst comes to all of us naturally, but because we are fallen and sick, we easily confuse our thirst for God with fleshly or psychological cravings. The Church Fathers speak of our unbridled physical passions, which lead us to seek short-lived gratification in flattery, vanity, pride, gossip, temporal goods, and material success. Any one of these passions can supplant our natural thirst for the living God.” (Dynamis 6/8/2014)
“Everyone thirsts for something, but only one thing will satisfy your heart. Jesus said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7.37-38) It is only when we thirst for God that our heart will be satisfied. If we thirst for wealth, it will never be enough. If we thirst for power and authority, it will never be enough. If we thirst for knowledge, it will never be enough. When enough isn’t enough, you’re probably thirsting for the wrong thing. Thirst after God, and you will never thirst again.” (Fr. Athanasios Haros)
“…despite the grave theological illiteracy of our era, very few would dispute that people in our present time are thirsty for the truth, for substantive knowledge, for an authentic relationship with God. They are seeking the "living water" much like the Samaritan woman to whom Jesus revealed His messianic divinity, saying, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water than I shall give him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).” (Archbishop Demetrios of America)
“…wisdom is not found in much learning and many letters; rather, as the Holy Scriptures say, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and prudence the desire of the Holy; indeed, it is good to know the law of the mind. This is correct, for faith in God engenders a good mind, and the good mind is a river of living water; he who has attained it will be filled with its beneficial and life-bearing waters.” (Saint Ephraim)
“…the Holy Spirit leads us to Christ by softening the heart with grace. The Holy Spirit heals the infirmities of our soul and heart so that our heart is ready to accept Christ and to be filled with the living water.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis)
"As we read in the Psalms, "My soul is thirsting for God, the living God." People all over the world hunger and thirst for God; many seek Him without even realizing that in their longing it is Him they seek." (Deacon and Fellow Pilgrim)
“Only the spirit and life of Christ Himself will satisfy a thirsting soul.” (W. Phillip Keller)
“…spiritual exercises and pious devotions cannot slake our deep thirst for God unless we practice them with the firm intention of receiving Christ.” (OCPM 6/4/2017)
“The person . . . who truly loves God and Christ, even though he may perform a thousand good works, considers himself as having done nothing because of his insatiable longing for the Lord…But daily he perseveres in prayer with a hungering and a thirst in faith and love. He has an insatiable desire for the mysteries of grace and for every virtue.” (Pseudo-Macarius)
"Let me not slip into self-contentment and imagined self-sufficiency, which is the kiss of death to spiritual growth and thirst." (Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin)
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