Bulletin 4.6.25

“Obey Your Thirst”

— Lowe and Partners (advertizing agency) in a 1994 campaign for Sprite

It doesn’t matter if the person is right or wrong in his opinion about what is missing from his life that has caused his sense of dissatisfaction. It doesn’t matter what he believes to be the missing ingredient and how it would complete him. The person may be thirsting for something which, if he got it, would only worsen his thirst. He may be seeking something that if he obtained it would only make him more miserable. None of this matters: the only thing that matters is thirst… 

A more all-inclusive description of human beings, I believe, could not be imagined. “If anyone thirsts”, is simply equivalent to saying, “Whoever wants to be happy.” If a person can be found who is perfectly happy, or who has no desire to be happy, that person is not invited. Until such a person is found, we must insist that this invitation refers to everyone.

— John Brown (of Newington) Discourses and Sayings of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1850; modern paraphrase)

The Christian says, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. 

               — C.S. Lewis,  Mere Christianity, (1949; Book III, CH. 10, "Hope")

The Forty-Second Psalm (1-2; 5-6) 

As the deer pants for the water brooks, 

So my soul pants for You, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; 

When shall I come and appear before God?... 

Why are you in despair, O my soul? 

And why have you become disturbed within me? 

Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him 

For the help of His presence.

(Prayer)