Still Thirsty

Psalm 42:2-6

Phrases that spoke to me today:
• as the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God
• my tears have been my bread day and night, as they ask me every day, "Where is your God?"
• wait for God, for I shall again praise him, my savior and my God

Applying the Word to My Life:
Living the life of a Christian is hard right now. I've been sick for days - low on energy, pulled in different directions, and even when I know exactly what I should do, I don't always have much left to do it with. On top of that, resisting the world's pull takes real effort, and I don't always win. Something in me knows exactly what the psalmist means by tears for bread and a soul asking, "Where is your God?"

Augustine knew that pull better than most, and felt it stronger than most. As a young man he built a reputation as a brilliant rhetoric teacher, chasing status and applause. He lived with a woman outside marriage for over a decade and had a son with her. He drifted through one philosophy after another - years with the Manicheans, years of skepticism - looking for something solid enough to stand on and never quite finding it. His mother Monica prayed for his conversion for almost two decades before it happened, worn down by watching a son she loved wander further and further from where she wanted him to land.

Then, in a garden in Milan, he heard what sounded like a child's voice telling him to take up and read. He opened Scripture to Paul's letter to the Romans and landed on a line telling him to stop feeding his old cravings and clothe himself with Christ instead - words that named the exact things he'd spent years chasing, like they'd been written for him alone. He became a priest, then bishop of Hippo, and wrote Confessions - an entire book addressed directly to God, tracing every one of those wasted years honestly, without hiding any of it. Sixteen centuries later the Church still calls him a saint and a Doctor of the Church, one of the handful of voices its theology still leans on every day.

If someone who went that deep into the world could still find his way home, a hard week isn't proof you're losing. The psalm isn't describing failure - it's describing what it feels like to belong somewhere you haven't reached yet. The ache you're carrying right now is not a sign something's wrong with you - it's a sign you're still on the way home. You are not the only one carrying it, and it does not get the last word, any more than it got the last word with Augustine.

My Response for Today:
Today when I feel the pull or the tiredness, I'll remember it isn't the end of the story - just a sign I'm still headed somewhere better.