Thirsting

 

I was in the middle of a book by Father John Riccardo titled Rescued (which is very good) and a thought struck me.

I’m big on evangelization and the importance of helping people see the necessity of coming to Christ.  The Good News.  Salvation.  Eternal life.  All of it.

But, when you work in ministry, especially with an eye towards evangelization, you sort of get stuck in this line of questioning . . . 

How do you let others know the beauty of faith?  How do you inspire them to seek baptism?  When life is so busy and people are pulled in so many directions, how do you help them see that life is meaningless without God?

So, in the middle of the book I had his thought . . .

Sometimes I start reading a book and just cannot keep going.  Either I find the book uninteresting, irrelevant, or I’d simply rather be doing something else.

Then, down the road, I may pick up that book again, and because my circumstances have changed, or my interests, or my needs, I begin to absorb it.

It’s sort of like that with our awareness (or lack thereof), of our need for God.

Sometimes in life you are floating along with everything going okay, then, if your circumstances change, all of a sudden you start to consider the bigger questions in life.  When that happens, quite quickly, the “topic” of God comes front and center and you become more interested, sometimes moved to seek him.

God somehow becomes more relevant to you and that’s when you begin paying attention, but, the truth is, God is always “in season.”

Here’s a popular exchange that I like to recall whenever I start going down the thought trail:

“Well, you can lead a horse to water, but, you can’t make him drink.” To this, the older man replied: “Your job is not to make them drink; it’s to make them thirsty.”

Making others thirsty for God is a sound goal and one that happens when the followers of Christ can give expression to what they know to be true—that living in Christ, as the center of your life, is THE greatest way to live, now, and the surest promise of joy in the hereafter.

Those who have gone without water and know what thirst is, can be great witnesses.  Where do you fit into this equation? 

Are you thirsty, or do you have water to give?

Janet Cassidy
janetcassidy.blogspot.com