Thirst
As a deer gets thirsty
for streams of water,
I truly am thirsty
for you, my God. ~ Psalm 42:1 (CEV)
Jesus stood up and shouted, “If you are thirsty, come to me and drink! ~ John 7:37b (CEV)
Jesus, I need another drink of your water. My life is dry and I am starting to feel faint. I've been drinking from the wrong bottle -- silly manufactured drinks that end up making me more thirsty. But you quench thirst like no other. Please come refresh my life as I come to you. My cup is in hand and I am expecting you. Amen.
Challenging Words
- faint -- the sense of having no energy, perhaps dizziness, disoriented, not fully aware of what is happening
- manufactured -- something that is produced on a large scale, something that is unnatural, less than real, less than honest, unhealthy
- quench -- stop thirst. For example, when we drink water it stops us from being thirsty. It quenches thirst. Cola drinks, on the other hand, while tasting good and temporarily refreshing, do not quench thirst because the caffeine in them makes people urinate more. So they end up having less liquid in their bodies and are thirsty for more. There are things in life that are temporarily refreshing but do not in the long-run quench our spiritual thirst.
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2015 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul. The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase -- a freestyle biblical adaptation -- somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
