Did you know that Jesus thirsts for you?

I didn’t either until over a decade ago when I was reading about prayer in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Thirst is a strong word and a strong desire.  It can be used to describe our desperate longings for water, God, people and things.  Some of my favorite Psalms spoke of thirsting for God. 

Like Psalm 42:1 which says, “As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and behold the face of God?”

And like Psalm 63:1 which says, “O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.”

Those Psalms really resonated with me because I was longing for and seeking a close connection with God through prayer.

But could Jesus really be thirsting for me like I was thirsting for Him?

Well, that is what the Catechism says in the section on Christian Prayer in paragraphs 2559 through 2561.  I quote it here.

2559 "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."

2560 "If you knew the gift of God!" The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.

2561 "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!" Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.

The quotes at the beginning of paragraphs 2560 and 2561 come from John 4:10 where Jesus had to go through Samaria (which Jews at that time normally wouldn’t do) to meet a Samaritan woman who had been trying to satisfy her thirst for God with men.  The woman is representative of us who seek to fill our thirst for God with all manner of things rather than coming to God Himself in prayer and satisfying His thirst for us and our thirst for Him.

God the Son, Jesus, and God the Father thirst for each of us like Jesus thirsted for the Samaritan woman to turn to Him so that she might have living water!  Wow!  When I first read that a wave of God’s love washed over me and I was lost in the wonder of it, lying on the floor for over two hours as He ministered to my parched soul.

Did you know that Jesus thirsts for you and longs to give you His living water?  He is waiting by the well for you.  Yes, you personally, not the crowd, not someone else, but you.

The Jesus Prayer

In Revelation 12, we see the great dragon, that ancient serpent who is also called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, the accuser, who accuses us day and night. He tries to kill Mary and Jesus but is unsuccessful and in verse 17, he goes off to make war on the rest of her offspring, those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus, in other words us.

One of the reasons I needed to become a Catholic is I needed the written... prayers of the Church to memorize and pray when the Accuser is coming after me. He often was able to silence my own prayers by intimidation and his accusations. He made me speechless. He also took away my ability to concentrate on the Scriptures.

But even though I couldn’t muster any of my own words, I could pray the prayers of the Church that I had memorized when I wasn’t under attack. One of the prayers I picked up along the way was the Jesus Prayer.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

There was a period of a couple of months when the Accuser would assault me nightly. This was several years before I came into the Church, maybe more. My own words failed me as did my knowledge of the Scriptures. But I prayed this prayer over and over because I knew Jesus came into the world to save sinners like me. And He in his mercy would come to my aid as I called out to Him with this prayer. And He did which is why I am still here.

I have many more prayers and other channels of grace such as the Sacraments which Jesus is providing through His Church, the Body of Christ. I hope this prayer will help some of you as it did me. May God be with you all.