What Are You Thirsty For?

And today, another question:

What Are You Thirsty For?



C.S. Lewis offers the following observation about our deepest desire:

"I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished from both Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. ... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. BUT THEN JOY IS NEVER IN OUR POWER AND PLEASURE OFTEN IS."

--C.S. Lewis, "Surprised by Joy," p.18.

Here, then, is the addict's dilemma: Do I seek that which brings me Joy/Healing, but which I cannot possess or control, or do I seek the continual short-term solution of my addiction which, seemingly, I can possess or control?



This dilemma is also illustrated in the Gospel of John:

In the fourth chapter of John's gospel, Jesus is traveling through Samaria (a region reviled by Jews) and stops to rest at a well. It is the middle of the day, the sun is hot, and no respectable person would come to the well at this time of day. So it is that a woman who has had five husbands and who is living with a man to whom she is not married comes to the well. She comes in the heat of the day so that she will not be seen.

Jesus, upon seeing her, asks for a drink. She responds that she is a Samaritan and that a Jew would not ask a Samaritan for a drink.

Jesus then states: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

Jesus offers the Samaritan an alternative to her sinful and addictive ways: drink the living water.

What does this mean?

Addicts return to their addiction time and time again because of a thirst, a yearning for healing. Addicts continue to go to the same well, the well of addiction, for short-term relief that will not, ultimately, bring them healing. Jesus (or the addict's "Higher Power") offers living water--a source of healing that will last.

But will the addict accept living water (which he cannot control or possess) and stop going back to the well of addiction.

Well, addict, what are you thirsty for?