"Jesus answered and said to the Samaritan woman, “My soul is thirsting for the living God.”

Psalm 42:3

Suppose you had to choose between two friends. One friend is a seventy percent friend and one is a one-hundred percent friend. The seventy percent friend loves you seventy percent of the time and the one-hundred percent friend loves you perfectly all the time. Which friend would you choose? Correct me if you think my judgment is way off, but I am betting the ranch that you would choose the one-hundred percent friend. My question is, then, why do we so often not choose the one-hundred percent friend?

We were made by perfection for perfection. Nothing less than one-hundred percent love and friendship all the time will do for us. Until we find that, our souls will be restless and thirsting for that kind of drink.

St. Augustine reminds us that our greatest thirst in life is for that one-hundred percent friend. We are incomplete in our friendships and what we desire most is a friend who loves us perfectly. Knowing we are built for perfect love, he says, “My soul is restless and I will not rest until I rest in you, O Lord.”

One way of picturing this thirst is to say that we all have a God-shaped hole in our hearts for that one-hundred percent friend. We may try and try all we want to fill that hole with lesser friend (which is everyone and everything but God) but only God can fill that God- shaped hole.

It is so important to name what we thirst for in life and to name our deepest thirst. Our greatest thirst is for perfect love all the time. God is the only one that can make that happen for us. So, the question begs, how much do I go to God to slake my thirst?

If we think there is someone or something other than God that will fill quench our thirst we are fooling ourselves. No one or no-thing can fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts except God. Do not settle for less than perfection. May the only settling you do in life be on God and his one-hundred percent love for you.

God’s will!
+Fr. John