No sink?

I am feeling in a moany mood - the kitchen is still out and will be until the New Year - I am devising a plot to get a functional room this weekend but no cabinets until January 5th. The big part is no sink - it is amazing how annoying that really is - but then I think I little bit harder and realize that my irritation is due to the fact that most of the time we are extremely blessed to be able to turn on the tap and have drains that work - we still have water in the house - more than many people in the world.

So, we are not thirsty, we are not wondering where our next drink will come from.

This pondering of water has led me to realize that sometimes I get spiritually thirsty and when that is true, just like the grumpiness of no kitchen, it affects the other things which I do.

I read somewhere that a huge percentage of the population are permanently dehydrated - even though there is adequate water - the symptoms of mild dehydration are not always obvious - things like headaches and tiredness - even weight gain. The solution is simple - drink.

Massive dehydration is more obvious and perhaps more akin to the spiritual breakdown which is easy to identify - stop praying, stop attending church, stop living in the Spirit and you start to get really spiritually sick - but it is the more creeping sort of thirst which manifests itself in nagging doubts and lack of attention, which I have been thinking about.

Unfortunately it is not as easy to see as the bare shell of my kitchen and it can take a little effort to fix it - we may have to work a little to find our place of refreshment - not because God is somewhere else but because we ourselves have wandered, through tiredness, or sickness, or just lack of effort. And God often does not allow us comfort for too long - our faith is kinetic, it moves and our understanding changes. Often after we have been thirsty we get to a place where we can drink only to find that we have to move again. But the water remains the same - Jesus' generous water of life.

The Christian life is an odd mixture of God's never failing abundance and our constant striving to exist in that place which God provides. The gap between the two can be a thirsty place - but Advent is a great time to cure dehydration.