Onward

Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me, and let the one who believes in Me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7.37-38)

One of my favorite Taizé chants repeats this simple verse:

By night we travel in darkness, in search of the living water

Only our thirst leads us onward

Only our thirst leads us onward

The original Spanish of the chant’s last phrase, sólo la sed nos alumbra, actually translates as, “only the thirst lights us,” indicating that a deep inner desire to taste Christ’s living water somehow illumines us even though we often can’t see our way. In our driest, darkest hours, Jesus’s promise to quench our thirst becomes the lamp that draws us to Him.

If we’re feeling parched, possibly even a little listless and disoriented, at this stage in our Lenten journey, we’re actually in good shape. It means that all the other refreshments we rely on—good intentions, determination, and religious pride, for instance—are starting to evaporate. We’ve reached the point where our thirst can only be satisfied by raw faith in Christ. And the grand irony of this venture is manifest when we discover that we carry rivers of living water within us. “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water,” Jesus says. But we can’t release the rivers of life and satisfy our thirst until we reach Christ. “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me, and let the one who believes in Me drink.”

Only our thirst leads us onward

Only the thirst lights us

Lent’s desert imagery encourages us to frame it as a daytime activity. (Advent is the nocturnal quest.) Yet if we’re looking at vast, unmapped, barren expanses, traveling by day is much the same as traveling by night. We are at place where all we have to go on resides in us. Now is the time when we let go of intellect so that instinct can take over. Our heart, full and overflowing with life-giving water that quenches our deepest thirsts, guides us. It will lead us to the place where our longing for Christ will be met.

In Philippians 3.13-16, we hear Paul’s famous “onward and upward” admonition: “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.”

The water we crave is already there, waiting for us to reach the place where we’re truly walking by faith and not by sight. Once we cross that tipping point, we will be satisfied, refreshed, and renewed. Right now, we have to remember that our thirst leads us onward.

Only the thirst lights us