hunger and thirst, day 4

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
You called, You cried, you shattered my deafness.  You sparkled, you blazed, You drove away my blindness.  You shed your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for You.  I tasted and now I hunger and thirst.  You touched me, and now I burn with longing for your peace. (Confessions by St. Augustine)

 Psalm for the Week: Psalm 81

Scripture for the Day: Isaiah 55:1-5

Reading for Reflection:

All of us are willing to admit pangs of hunger and feelings of emptiness inside us.  We experience half-formed dreams and vague drives for something more than human resources can promise or produce.  There is in each of us a dynamic, a mystique or drive that, unless detoured by human selfishness, leads to search for God, whether we know it or not.  It is this desire that carries us beyond what we can see into the darkness and obscurity of faith.  It is a hunger that can be satisfied in God alone.  Obviously, God does not intend to satisfy this desire completely in this world; its function is to draw us closer and closer to God who alone can give us complete satisfaction.  This is the truth which St. Augustine discovered, after the discouragement of so many blind alleys:  “our hearts were made for you, O God, and they shall not rest until they rest in you.”

     The experience of God touching and involving the human will in search may come to different men in different ways.  There are many avenues of attraction to God.  Some are drawn to him through his beauty, others to his peace, and still others are attracted by his power.  Most men find themselves drawn to God as the source and wellspring of the very meaning of life, the ultimate ground of human existence.  But it may be that the first motion of God within the believer-to-be is one of disturbance.  Sometimes we forget that God comes to us, not only to give us peace but also to disturb us.  He comforts the afflicted and he afflicts the comfortable.  For some men life becomes a hopeless mess, and they find themselves aware of a demand to know what it is all about.  This inner restlessness and disquiet can well be God sowing the first seeds of faith in the human heart. (A Reason to Live!  A Reason to Die! By John Powell) 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: All Who are Thirsty

 

All who are thirsty
All who are weak

Come to the fountain

Dip your heart in the stream of life

Let the pain and the sorrow

Be washed away

In the waves of his mercy

As deep cries out to deep (we sing)

 

Come Lord Jesus come (3x)

 

Holy Spirit come (3x)

Closing Prayer:
O God of tender mercies, I know I’ve kept you at arm’s length.  I’ve kept you safe in heaven.  But heaven has leaned down to the earth and I’ve been touched anew.  Like thirsty ground I long for you.  Forgive my casualness about your Love.  Forgive my shallow life.  I am finished with shallowness.  I used to pray that I be saved from eternal death, but now I pray to be saved from shallow living.  Eternal death?  Shallow living?  Is there a difference?  O God, deliver me from shallow living! (A Tree Full of Angels  by Macrina Wiederkehr)