Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health – Question 1*
(reflections on Dr. Donald S. Whitney's book, "Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health," chapter 1)
“Do you thirst for God?”
How many of us have, on a very warm summer day, thirsted for a refreshing and cooling drink? Why would we do so? Obviously, our thirst needs to be quenched. We are creatures whose existence requires quantities of water; up to 60% of the human body is water. Some experts have pushed that number higher to 80% depending on an individual's body. As water begins to evaporate from our bodies or is otherwise voided, we must be conscientious of consistently replacing that water loss. Some adults can survive 5 to 10 days without replenishing lost water; some even fewer days depending on one's environment and health factors. A common recommendation calls for at least 8 cups or more of water per day to keep us functioning sufficiently. Again, the amount will depend on individual needs and build. From a physical standpoint, and to adequately maintain the functions of major body organs, our brain warns us, like an internal alarm, that we have lost needed water through the evaporation and voiding process, and must replenish. We call that warning "thirst". And the wise among us wastes little time obtaining the needed water.
Clean drinking water is consided the "elixir of life" - it is a solution to our physical thirst. We need clean drinking water in order to live. We yearn for it, we purchase it in great quantities, we gulp it down when experiencing a severe thirst. We use water as a base for other drinks like tea and coffee, and for cooking and baking. Water sates our thirst like nothing else can. And to a person, everyone reading this has thirsted for a drink of water today at some point. This is how essential water is: If we choose to ignore our "brain warning" - that invisible alarm that beacons us to take in water now, but we choose to keep putting it off for hours because we are busy, but promising ourselves that we'll do it after we do this or that, we will begin to find ourselves in serious trouble. A body deprived of just 4% to 5% of our body weight in water will begin to experience significant dehydration: we suffer fatigue, dizziness, headaches. For some in poor health, such deprivation can cause negative impact on kidneys, a racing heart, fainting, rapid breathing. At 8-10% of your body weight, a person experiences physical and mental deterioration, because the brain suffers, becoming unable to carry on certain necessary processes, which results in reduced cognitive functions and executive functions, and even shrinkage of brain tissue. [resources include news-medical.net; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; nhsinform.scot; MayoClinic.org]
While God created living creatures that must have clear drinking water to survive, He also created in human creatures -- you and me -- the potential to experience spiritual thirst, a spiritual alarm that calls us to be sated spiritually.
Scripture passages such as found in Psalm 42:1-2, Psalm 63:1, Isaiah 55:1; John 4:10 and 7:38 (and there are several more) metaphorically speak about our God and our Savior as water and living water that satisfies and gives life. God repeatedly tells humans to seek Him and live (Psalm 22:25-27; Amos 5:4; John 6:68; Jeremiah 29:13; Luke 11:9-10 -- to name a few passages), promising to be the eternal source and elixir of spiritual life.
So, what does it mean to truly thirst for God, to see Him as the Living Water, an elixir for eternal life? Do we search or seek earnestly for Him, with all confidence that He will assuage our spiritual thirst as we drink-in His word, drink-in His majesty, drink-in His glory? Does our spirit feel faint when we have gone several days without being refreshed by God, being "absent" in the presence of God, and neglecting to seek Him diligently through His word and prayer and sincere worship? Do we know what God "tastes like", and do we yearn for that taste to fill all our dry places?
Similar to thirst for water, we have all experienced spiritual thirst in one way or the other, a thirst that has taken us in certain directions for satisfying such thirst.
Dr. Whitney identifies and describes three kinds
of spiritual thirst:
· thirst of the empty soul - one who
has not been saved by God. The author notes that the empty soul has no desire
for God; that he/she thirsts for the desires of the flesh and mind (Ephesians 2:3) Such a one searches
everywhere under the sun to fulfill the need for satisfying his/her thirst (Ecclesiastes 1:9), yet discovers only
‘vanity and grasping for the wind’. (Ecclesiastes 1:14) The Christian - the one who follows Christ, knows
that what a thirsty soul needs can only be found in the One who
said, “whoever drinks of the water that I shall give will never thirst again.”
(John 4:14) The psalmist indicates that those who turn away from God to the world to satisfy their thirst will walk away unrefreshed -- an empty soul deceived into looking in dry places (Psalm 14:1-3; compare with Romans 3:11). Until the Holy Spirit touches the
“spiritual tongue” of the empty soul, that soul will never desire to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”.
· thirst of the dry soul – similar to the empty soul. This one has never found nor sought the “living water”, or may have once found it and has left the water in the cup. The person has gone out into the world in search of "another water" and continues dry spiritually, for the world’s water -- as Dr. Whitney describes it -- is a ‘salt-filled, briny water’. How much of one’s thirst is satisfied by that kind water? Such person who drinks that water will encounter a soul more dry than before; he/she will become spiritually unhealthy and eventually perish. (compare Psalm 143:6-7; Psalm 78:40; Psalm 68:6; Revelation 3:1)
· thirst of a satisfied soul – such a
person has drunk from the fount of living water that is God, and has seen that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8); the taste is so satisfying that such a soul
craves more. (see Philippians 3:7-10). Our natural self or soul is the character described above - empty and dry. It craves those carnal things, believing these will satisfy forever, only to be needy again within a few minutes. We cannot in our natural selves alone identify the true living water, let alone desire it. It is God and God alone who initiates the
thirst for Him and His Word! Once we taste Him and drink Him in, He continues to supply our need for Him. We are responsible to using the gift God has given us in faith and desire for Him, we must choose to continually seek The Fount of Living Water. The author asks us: Has your worship or devotional
experience lately provided you with ravishing tastes of what A.W. Tozer called
the “piercing sweetness” of Christ, only to leave you with a divine discontent
that desires more? Can we honestly, from our heart, pray his prayer:
“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness,
and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more; I am painfully
conscious of my need for further grace, and ashamed of my lack of desire. O
Triune God, I want to want thee, I long to be filled with longing, I thirst to
be made thirsty still.”
If we are seeking to be satisfied spiritually from the fount of Living Water, Dr. Whitney offers these "Steps for Thirsting After God:"
(1) Meditate on Scripture – not just reading the word; spend 25-50% of your Bible time meditating on some part of the passage. Meditation is effectual when we approach the passage with pen/pencil and paper in front of us to jot down our thoughts, find other passages that correlate to what we have just read, and pray on how to apply the passage in our lives.
(2) Pray through Scripture. After reading a section of Scripture – pray through that part of the same passage. Choose a section, and then verse-by-verse, let the words of God become the wings of your words of prayer to Him. Possibly one of the easier books of the Bible to pray through are the Psalms. Become the “first person voice” in the Psalm passages you choose and allow the words to bathe you in awareness of God’s presence. A couple of New Testament prayers found at Colossians 1:9-14 and Ephesians 3:14-21 can be adapted to your circumstances and prayed to God. If you wish to find more prayer-based scriptures, do an internet search on prayers in the Bible.
(3) Read ‘thirst-making’ writers. The author suggests those books considered ‘time-tested’ or which you know to be scripturally sound -- that is, fully Bible-based, rather than feel-good talks that become more about you than God. In one of our congregation's Bible studies, we have had the opportunity to study the Bible using guides from Dr. Charles Stanley and Dr. R.C. Sproul – contemporary writers who are deeply immersed in, and who seek to provide the ‘whole counsel of God’ in their writings. I have also found a couple of Jerry Bridges’ writings to be faith building, along with Tony Evans. Find out what books others are reading that could be meaningful for you to continue ‘thirsty’ for God. The books will put a taste of 'salt' in a believer's mouth - the opening to his/her soul, that will heighten one's thirst for God and His Eternal Word. (I suggest books rather than podcasts for the special reason that jotting notes into a book, underlining or highlighting passages, etc. is more effective than trying to copy oral sources - unless you are able to take dictation at 100 words a minute!)
*The foregoing represents my personal reflections on a study by Dr. Donald S. Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. (2001. By Donald S. Whitney. NAVPRESS. ISBN 978-1-61747-187-2) Quotations and excerpts are from that source, unless otherwise identified. For the 2023 Lenten season I shared my personal reflections on all of the questions in Dr. Whitney's book - including the question addressed above, to my local congregation's Bible study group. I have updated this particular question for summer 2024. The questions are not, however, appointed only for a particular liturgical season, holiday, or age group, but may be the right occasion for some. Also, the occasion of one's birthday, or the anniversary of their baptism offer an annual evaluation opportunity. Or one may benefit from an evaluation every six months, or whatever works for you. These truly are questions every Christ follower may find useful in fulfilling God's command at 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test!" As many students of the Bible know, the church at Corinth looked a lot like many of our churches today - it was a church in great need of self-examination, correction, spiritual re-direction "from God's mouth", i.e., His Word, and true worship of the Only Living God, water from the Rock.
A couple of hymns to use in your personal worship: Thirst for You. CeCe Winans
Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord. Trey McLaughlin.
Word of God Speak. Mercy Me.
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