Parched at the Well

When the One Who Gives Living Water Reveals the Poverty of a Religious Identity

“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?”

Psalm 42:2

I enter the desert of my own heart and there is no romance in it. It is not the desert of icons or poetry. It is dry, wind worn, stripped of illusion. I know the language of living water. I have preached it. I know the mystery of the Bread from Heaven. I have lifted it in my hands. And yet I feel parched with thirst and strangely starved.

The contradiction unsettles me.

Christ gives His Spirit. Christ gives His Body and Blood. The well is not empty. The famine is not in Him. The famine is in me. I see now how easily I have grazed on the food of this world. Not gross sin perhaps, but noise. Praise. Productivity. The steady current of my own thoughts. I have sated myself on analysis, on preparation, on the next talk, the next series, the next insight. A flood of words can drown a man as surely as silence can save him.

I begin to understand that I have sometimes fed more on speaking of God than on God Himself.

You are showing me, Lord, the emptiness of this world, but even more the subtle poverty of a religious identity worn externally. Vestments of competence. The reputation of devotion. The role of teacher. The one who knows the Fathers. The one who guides. All of it can be true in part and yet lack substance at the core. I tremble to see how easily the outer form can continue while the inner fire grows dim.

I have given thousands of talks. The number feels heavy now. I place them before You with fear and hope. If there was poverty in me, weakness, vanity, distraction, I pray that You did not allow it to become an obstacle to those who listened. You feed Your people with a few loaves and broken hands. I trust that You supplied what I lacked. Still, I feel the weight of it. Words are not neutral. They either arise from silence or from the need to fill it.

I am tired, Lord. Not only physically. Tired of the constant output. Tired of the interior commentary. Tired of trying to sustain an image of steadiness and clarity. There is a weariness that comes from living slightly above one’s true depth. It is a subtle strain, almost imperceptible at first, until one day the heart feels hardened and old.

And yet I do not want to disappear in resentment or self pity. As long as I remain in this world, let my words arise only from silence and intimacy with You. If there must be speech, let it be born of prayer. If there must be teaching, let it come from poverty. Strip away whatever in me feeds on being needed. Strip away whatever clings to identity for security.

Let my focus narrow and steady. You, and You alone, the Beloved.

If I am poor, let that poverty magnify Your glory. If I am weak, let that weakness make room for Your strength. If my heart feels old and hardened, then breathe upon it. Give fervor not as an emotion but as fire. A fire that burns quietly and steadily. A fire that consumes impurity without spectacle. A fire that leaves behind simplicity.

I no longer ask to be effective. I ask to be true.

I no longer ask to be admired. I ask to be faithful.

I no longer ask to feel full. I ask to hunger for You alone.

The desert is not comfortable, but it is honest.

And honesty, at last, feels like the beginning of mercy.