I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
I've Always Been Thirsty
Scripture:
Drink this water, and your thirst is quenched only for a moment. You must return to this well again and again. I offer water that will become a wellspring within you that gives life throughout eternity. You will never be thirsty again.
John 4:13-14 (The Voice)
I love the LORD, because He has heard
my voice and my supplications.
Because He inclined His ear to me,
therefore I will call on Him as long as I live.
my voice and my supplications.
Because He inclined His ear to me,
therefore I will call on Him as long as I live.
Psalm 116:1-2 (NRSV)
I wonder if all my longings
They could shape me out a ship of hopes
To carry me
On these seas of homeward journeying
I yearn for home...
To come gather me
From "Yearn" by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Every week, I attend a young adult Bible study at a church downtown, but recently I joined another Bible study at my own church. At first, I decided against participating in this Bible study, because I feel like I have enough going on in my life at this time and because the group meeting sometimes conflicts with other things I would like to do at the time. My pastor, ever the butt-kicker, convinced me, ever the people-pleaser, to join it anyway. This study has proven to be less informational and theological and more personal, emotional, and reflective. In the first week, I was glad I had joined, for this study has given the chance to reflect on my entire journey of faith.
Looking back, I came to realize that I've always been thirsty.
Some Christians understand the life of faith as a journey, but many Christians tend to focus on the destination of the journey rather than the journey itself. This tension can be seen in the controversies regarding a certain book that was released last year. The author of this book challenged conventional understandings of heaven and hell and encouraged his readers to dig deeper and to question further, saying that both God and the Church are big enough to contain the many different beliefs on the subject. Numerous other authors wrote books in rebuttal to this author, one of whom even said, "We can't afford to get it wrong!"1
It was such questions that marked the beginning of my faith journey, for I too was focused, not on the journey, but on the destination, namely where I would go when I died. When I was very young my understanding was that good people went to heaven when they died and that bad people went to hell. In the second grade, I started attending a Christian school attached to a church that was very conservative theologically, socially, and politically, and I learned that if I did not repent of my sins and believe in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, I would be tormented forever and ever in hell. For this reason, I asked God to save me. I couldn't "afford to get it wrong."
I attended that same school until I graduated, and the entire time my heart was haunted with doubts about my own salvation, fears about "getting it wrong," and questions about the nature of God. I actually "got saved" a number of times. At some point, either in high school or after I graduated, I decided to forget about the afterlife, to trust in God, and to try to do what God wanted me to do.
Despite my own wrestling with the afterlife, I felt that the fear of hell was a selfish motive for seeking God. I wondered who would even give a rip about Jesus Christ if there was no heaven or hell, and I felt that most Christians were only concerned about pulling their own fat out of the fire. I felt that Christians should have the attitude of the Muslim saint Rabia Basri who carried around a torch and a bucket of water, saying, "I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God."2
If the fear of hell and the desire for heaven are bad motives for seeking God, what then is a good motive? Maybe I thought that a proper motive for seeking God would be, at the very least, gratitude to God for creating us and providing for us. Maybe I thought that a sense of duty or altruism should fuel our striving for God. Perhaps God created each of us for a purpose, and perhaps our fellow human beings desperately need for us to carry out that divinely-given purpose.
The truth is that such motivations have never been characteristic of my own journey of faith, even after I decided to forget about the afterlife.
I graduated from high school knowing that I needed to be a Christian, but I wasn't sure I actually wanted to be a Christian. I felt that, if I were to truly sink my teeth into Christianity, I wouldn't enjoy my life very much. Somehow I got it into my head that everything fun and free-spirited, from dancing to fashion to enjoyable music, was somehow sinful. Plus, I didn't particularly want to be like the "real Christians" I knew, for I thought that they were stuffy, puritanical, judgmental, and self-righteous.
My outlook about Christianity changed completely during my junior year at Furman University. At the beginning of the school year, I learned about the Wesley Fellowship, the United Methodist group on campus. To be honest, I joined the group hoping to find a nice Christian girlfriend. Though I never found a girlfriend in the group, I found something I never had before. I found Christian young people whose company I enjoyed, young Christians whom I actually wanted to emulate. I found Christian peers who were serious about their faith but didn't exhibit the negative Christian stereotypes. I never really had a youth group at my church, so this group was like a breath of fresh air.
During my time with the Wesley Fellowship, I began to see that a Christian life could indeed be very enjoyable and that following Christ was not about rules or pious stuffiness. It was this group that introduced me to both the joy of mission work and the fun of contra dancing and swing dancing. This group meant so much to me that I didn't leave the group when I graduated. In fact, I was involved with this group longer as an alumnus than I was as a student.
With the Wesley Fellowship, I went on retreats, participated in Bible studies, served my fellow human beings on mission trips, and gathered weekly for worship and fellowship. My primary motive for doing these things was not to serve God, to serve other people, or to grow spiritually. I did serve God and others, and I did grow spiritually, but I did all these things, first and foremost, to be with my friends. This group saw me through some really rough times.
In 2007, I graduated from Furman University with a bachelors degree in computer science, and by September of that year, I was offered a job as a computer engineer with a small company in my town. This company happened to be a casino vendor that leased video poker machines and video slot machines. At first, the concept of working in the gambling industry didn't bother me. Though I realized that gambling is never the best use for one's money, I did not find it problematic if someone had a little extra money and wanted to gamble for fun. After I accepted the job, I began to worry about what my friends would think, especially since the United Methodist Church takes a strong stance against gambling.
Accepting that job was a choice I lived to regret, for I did not find satisfaction in my work, but rather shame. I hated telling people what I did for a living. I hated the fact that I worked for a company that benefited from the sickness of compulsive gamblers. Sometimes I even provided people justifications for my working in this industry when nobody asked for any. I couldn't take my job seriously, and, around a year after I took the job, after my first major crunch period, I came to realize that my employers wanted more from me than I wanted to give them.
I desperately wanted out, but simply quitting a job can be a rather condemning thing to put on a résumé. With my back against the wall, I turned to God. Every day before work, I prayed that God would call me away from my job. In the meantime, I began to flirt with a new vocation. I was unsure that I wanted to be a computer programmer any longer, and I began to wonder if I had been dodging a call to ministry. To explore my potential new calling, I became more active in the Church: I began preaching and teaching Sunday school, and, in a very small way, I helped with the start-up of a Hispanic church. I also started blogging so that I could continue writing when I didn't have the opportunity to preach.
Months passed, and God answered my prayers, giving me a legitimate reason to leave my job. The company for which I worked bought another company, consolidated offices, and moved all operations out of state. I was unwilling to relocate, so I was laid off. I still hadn't determined whether or not I was called to ministry, so I looked for another job as a computer programmer. This time, I was more intentional with my job search. I was offered another programming job at Greenville Technical College, the first place I applied. God delivered me from a job that brought me shame and gave me the opportunity to use my skills to serve other people. I have been working at this job for three years now.
When I took the job at Greenville Tech, I had been out of college for nearly two and a half years, but I was still attending the Wesley Fellowship at my alma mater. I never really felt unwelcome, but I became aware of a nagging feeling that I no longer belonged with the group. Over time, the community that once felt like a home to me began to feel more like an exile. When I could no longer endure the feeling of being half-in and half-out, I decided that it was time to leave.
Months earlier, my mom had found the website of a young adult Bible study group called B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bible) at a large United Methodist church downtown, so I decided to check it out. I walked into the room where the group meets, and I was home. The transition from one community to another was very easy. The group meets regularly on Tuesday nights to discuss the book or Scripture we have been studying, and we go out for dinner afterward. What I no longer had with my college community, I have once again with my new community.
Like the Wesley Fellowship, B.Y.O.B. has given me opportunity to learn and to serve others, but service and spiritual growth have not been my motivations for my involvement with this group. I find myself doing the things I do in order to be with my friends, as was the case when I was involved with the Wesley Fellowship.3
I look down on Christians who think of Jesus Christ as their "get-out-of-hell-free card," but, looking back, I have to admit that my own walk of faith has been no less selfish. When I was in school, I too sought Christ as a means to avoid eternal damnation. My involvement with my Christian community in college and with my current Bible study group has been a means to connect with other people. When I turned to God when I worked in the gambling industry, I sought to escape from the shame and meaninglessness I felt in my life. I never sought God for God's Own sake: I always sought God because I needed something.
But maybe the "selfishness" of my journey of faith is not necessarily a bad thing.
One day, Jesus sat down to rest at a well when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Thirsty, He asked her for a cup of water. Jews and Samaritans typically hated each other, so the Samaritan woman was surprised that Jesus, a Jew, would even speak to her, much less ask her for water. Jesus then said to her, "If you recognized God’s gift and who is saying to you, 'Give Me some water to drink,' you would be asking Him and He would give you living water." He went on to say, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life."4
Of course, Jesus was speaking metaphorically. He was not offering the woman literal water to quench physical thirst: He is offering her something to quench the thirsts of her soul. The subject of the conversation changes as Jesus brings up a trail of broken relationships in the woman's life.5
Shane Hipps, one of my favorite preachers, once linked spiritual thirsts to emotions we often consider negative:
Pay attention to your emotional life, and it'll be an indication of your thirst. Are you angry? That is a thirst for justice. Are you lonely? That is a thirst for companionship, for connection, for love. Are you anxious? That is a thirst for peace. Are you fearful? That's a thirst for security. Are you racked with guilt over some sin? That is a thirst for absolution, for forgiveness, for mercy. When you have these feelings allow them to surface because they are the key to feeling the thirst, and you must feel the thirst in order to have it quenched by this Master, by this Jesus.6
The Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well was thirsty for love.7
The term "Living Water" has a become a popular metaphor in Christian circles to describe what Christ offers to each and every individual. It's interesting that Jesus used water as His metaphor.
Nobody drinks water for its own sake.
Nobody drinks water because it's the right thing to do.
Nobody drinks water because it will make the world a better place.
People drink water because they're thirsty.
People drink water because they need it.
People drink water because they'll die without it.
I have been thirsty my whole life. When I asked God to save me because I was afraid of going to hell when I died, I was thirsty for security. When my loneliness drove me to attend Bible studies, small groups, and mission projects, I was thirsty for friendship. When I prayed for God to deliver me from a job that brought me constant shame, I was thirsty for dignity. When the meaninglessness of my job drove me to begin exploring a future in the ministry, I was thirsty for purpose in life. Are the things I sought not of God? Are these things not needs that God built into my very nature as a human being, needs just as natural as the need for water? I wonder if, at the heart every pursuit in this life, there is ultimately a thirst for God.
In all this time, nothing has changed about my spiritual journey, for I am still thirsty. For more than a year now, I have had this recurring feeling that I am about to break under the weight of something. I am actually beginning think that this something is actually a bunch of somethings piled up on each other: the expectations I think people have for me, the expectations I have for myself, frustration that I constantly fall short of these expectations, and anger that things in my life seem to constantly go wrong. I am tired, and I want rest from all of it. Right now, I am thirsty for inner peace, and I think that God is calling me to pray for this peace.
We are all thirsty people. There is nothing wrong being thirsty or admitting that we are thirsty, for it is in our nature as human beings to have certain spiritual needs. Whatever your thirsts right now, I encourage you, the reader, to pray for the living water Christ promised to quench your thirsts. "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is [God's] faithfulness."8
Notes:
1 - I am not going to cite the specific books here. You can probably figure them out on your own.
2 - Wikipedia: Rabia Basri
3 - In case you're wondering, yes, I'm still seeking a girlfriend.
4 - John 4:4-15 (CEB quoted)
5 - Jonh 4:16-18
6 - Shane Hipps. "From the Belly." Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 04/18/10
7 - Shane Hipps. "Stay Thirsty." Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 04/11/10
8 - Lamentations 3:22-23 (NRSV)
The image featured in this introspection is public domain.
If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.
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