Thirst

So I have this problem. A drinking problem, but not the sort of drinking problem you are thinking of. I don't drink alcoholic beverages (this is not a judgment of those who do, just a fact of my life). No, my problem is probably just as troubling but very different.

I forget to drink. Water, tea, kool-aid, coke, you name it, I will forget to drink it. I can carry a Nalgene full of water around with my all day and not take a single sip. I can eat three meals a day and the only one I guarantee I'll drink something at is breakfast when I drink a full glass of milk.

As I'm sure you can imagine this is problematic. Every evening for the past week I've gotten a headache that practically made it impossible for me to function. I went to bed early and hoped that would make it go away. I did not know what the problem was. The headaches kept coming earlier, until on Wednesday I got a headache at 3 pm. By the actual evening I could barely function and I just simply went to bed. I could not figure out why until I talked to my parents and they mentioned "Maybe you are dehydrated".

It hit my like a ton of bricks. I probably drink about one and a half glasses of some sort of liquid a day. That's it. And that's not enough. It's not enough to function. I person needs way more than that.

So Thursday I made myself drink all day. I actually drank half of a nalgene. And yet I still forgot to drink anything at dinner.

Now a person might ask how does this happen? Don't you get thirsty? Don't you crave that liquidy goodness that is the only thing that can quench your thirst?

This is where the problem lies. I don't feel thirsty.

At least, I don't think I feel thirsty. I think the problem really is that I have been so thirsty my entire life that I don't know what it means to not be thirsty. I have ignored that thirst for so long it no longer means anything. It's normal. It's the way I am, all the time. So unless my thirst gets really extreme (which is rarely does and usually involves a lot of salt intake), I don't notice it.

I think my spiritual life is like this sometimes too. I'm living in such a state of thirst, such a state of need, that I don't even know it, because that is the status-quo. It's the way life is and I simply can't feel the need, the thirst. I don't know how to fix the spiritual headaches that come up, the debalitating doubt, because I don't know why its happening. I don't see that they are a symptom of my spiritual dehydration because I don't feel thirsty. I don't know I'm dehydrated.

Sometimes you have to make yourself drink. You don't feel the thirst, you don't feel a need, but you have to make yourself do it anyway. That's my only solution to my physical dehydration and my only solution to my spiritual one. I must make myself read my Bible, spend time with God, go to Bible Studies, and Church. I may not feel like it, because I may not feel thirsty, but I have to do it.

I'm not sure its possible to drink too much water (though too much makes my throat hurt - go figure). It is certainly not possible to have too much God in your life.

So quench your thirst.

Grab a bottle of water and your Bible and start drinking.