Some years ago, I developed a tri-fold brochure describing the kinds of spiritual formation services I provide. The title on the cover is “Athirst for God?” indicating that the audience would be “thirsty pilgrims.” The cover features a picture of three deer, a buck, a doe, and a fawn beside a flowing stream, the buck alert, the other two satisfying their thirsts. Below the picture is the passage from our psalm today: “As the deer longs for the water-brooks, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God.” When I asked several people to review the brochure and make suggestions for improvement before printing it, all questioned the use of “athirst,” thinking it a typo, that a space had been omitted between the ‘a” and “thirst.” I considered their comments, but I did not change it because, to me, “athirst” says something very different from “a thirst.” Somehow “athirst” seems more powerful, more compelling. On a hot day I might have “a thirst” for a drink of water, but “athirst’ to me describes the desperation of one in the desert struggling for the oasis.

As long as merely showing up for Sunday worship satisfies our thirst for God, we don’t know how it feels for our soul to be “athirst for God.” For most of us, however, sometime in the second half of life, something happens. Some call it a conversion experience; others recognize it as coming to the end of their rope and recognizing their powerlessness to make it through the day without God’s help. Some have the exhilaration of a mountain-top experience; others go through the agony of a dark night of the soul. However it happens, we wake up one day “athirst for God.” We finally realize nothing else can satisfy our longing. As St. Augustine says, ”You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you, O God,” or as Teresa of Avila puts it: “God alone suffices.”

Being “athirst for God” is what keeps us going on the spiritual journey with all its ups and downs, all its twists and turns, all its ins and outs. Being “athirst for God” keeps us open to receive the living water God has prepared for us to enjoy and to share with other thirsty pilgrims.