12-17-2019

Good Morning All, 

         Psalm 63:1; “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

        In this time of year, we don’t often think of being thirsty.  We may think of being warm or cold, but we don’t usually worry about being thirsty.  Yet in this time of the year, we can experience great thirst.  For one thing, the air is drier, so we do not take in as much moisture when we breathe.  This causes us to experience dry mouth, dry sinuses, dry and scratchy throat; not to mention getting a shock whenever you touch the doorknob.  So, while we know of the need for lots of water in the summertime, during the heat of the year, we sometimes miss the need for it in the wintertime.  Yet our body needs water all the time for proper health and hydration; we need to stay healthy.

    Many people see their faith the same way.  They know that when there is a problem that they would need their faith to rely on.  We know that when there is a death or serious illness; that we need our faith to aid us through the struggle.  We know the “biggies” and will respond as we know we should.  When our soul thirsts, when the struggles of life cause us to sweat out the very essence of our being, we turn to God and our faith to get us through.  Some call this shallow or selfish but it is more accurate than many of us want to admit.

    The issue we want to address is that, just as our body needs constant and proper hydration, so our faith needs it as well.  We would do well not to ignore the need of our faith to be nourished as well.  Just as poor hydration in the wintertime can cause you illness and discomfort, allowing our faith to weaken lowers our resistance to the lures and attacks of the devil as well.  So if we want a healthier faith we need to feed it and give it the water that it needs.  We do this through the use of God’s “means of grace” that is God’s Word and sacraments.

    By reading, studying, listening to God’s Word we can hear God speaking his love to us.  We can hear his words of love; we can hear his words of comfort; we can taste the waters of rejuvenation.  We can feel the soothing of our soul as our spirit is lifted by the comfort of his love.  We can experience the joy of the sharing of the holy meal with our fellow believers and with the saints of all time.  We can feel the nourishment of our soul and the renewal of our faith.

    We can rest in the knowledge of our baptismal grace that, having been claimed by Christ in our baptism, we can know that we are always in the forgiveness of God’s mercy.  Our failures and falls are only setbacks and not destruction.  We know that we are always loved by God and that he is always calling us back.  We can wait until we “need” God but the sooner we realize that we need him every moment of every day; the sooner we can experience the truth of his great love.

Father, you nourish us and give us the love that quenches the thirst of our soul.  Help us to always use this great love.  Help us to know the certainty of this mercy in our lives that we may live in union with you.  Be with those who thirst at this time.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret