God Thirsts for You

“God is thirsty for everyone. This thirst has already drawn the Holy to Joy

and we the living are ever being drawn and drunk.

And yet God stills thirsts and longs.”

–Julian of Norwich

(Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations by Matthew Fox, p.37)

In her writing, Julian of Norwich speaks of God’s thirst for us. “God is thirsty for everyone.” Everyone. This means God thirsts for even hardened criminals and recalcitrant sinners.  Jesus says, “Judge not, that you not be judged” (Matthew 7:1, The New Oxford Annotated Bible). And Jesus further expounds, “If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (John 12:47, ibid.). God’s perspective is that saving a soul no matter how apparently damned is more important that judging that soul. God wants to drink from our souls no matter how much goodness remains.

“. . . We the living are ever being drawn and drunk.” God longs for connection with us . . . communion with us. He longs for us as we do for Him. We thirst for God, the living water. Jesus says, “but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14, ibid.).  “He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38, ibid.).’” “As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God . . . .” (Ps. 42:1-2, ibid.). We thirst for the stream of flowing nectar from the heart of the living God. And this beautiful, loving, forgiving God thirsts for you.

Photo Credit: Photo by Maja_Larsson at Flickr Creative Commons.

Linked with Thought-Provoking Thursday.