Deep and Thirsty Thoughts

In week 2 of our bible study series, we looked at Psalm 139 while we pondered the idea of being "Thirsty to be known." While I was preparing beforehand (it sounds like more than it is, I promise!), I was struck by the connection between our Thirsty theme this year and what I saw as the central point of Psalm 139. It made me look deeper into what thirst really is, how it is understood in the bible, and what it has to do with God knowing us.

In Psalm 139, David describes to God (and to us) how he is known (just count the references in these four verses!):

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
(Ps 139:1-4, BibleGateway, emph. added)

This got me to thinking - how do we become thirsty in the first place? What draws us to know God at all? I'm pretty sure that if left to our own devices, humans would be content to fumble along, alone and incomplete. So how is it that we become thirsty, and how do we have this thirst to be known by God and by others?

To answer my question, I dusted off my trusty Wikipedia and opened my handy BlueLetterBible. Thirst is thus defined by our Wiki friends:

Thirst is the basic need or instinct of humans or animals to drink. It arises with a lack of fluids and/or a surplus of salt. If the water volume of the body falls below a certain threshold, or the salt concentration becomes too high, the brain signals thirst. The salt concentration in the blood is measured with specialized sensors in the hypothalamus, notably in two circumventricular organs that lack an effective blood-brain barrier, the organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis and the subfornical organ.

I don't know about you, but I was a Biology major. I think scientifically first, and when I read this, I thought, "huh. Salt makes us thirsty... Salt and Light..."
Salt in the Bible is one of those quantities (like soil, light, cities, etc) that Christians are likened to. We must be salt in the world - so we can make others thirsty in the spiritual sense.

Next, I looked up thirst in a Bible Dictionary:

dipsao (greek) or Tsa'me (Hebrew)

1) to suffer thirst, suffer from thirst

a) figuratively, those who are said to thirst who painfully feel their want of, and eagerly long for, those things by which the soul is refreshed, supported, strengthened

This put the spiritual meaning of "thirst" into context for me. I just think, if I lived in a desert land, not a western rainforest, what meaning would "thirst" have for me? A serious need, a longing, a gnawing necessity. This is what Psalm 139 seems to say about God: that that spiritual thirst was created and cultivated by God, before we even knew ourselves.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book,
before one of them came to be.
Ps. 139:13-16, BibleGateway

So - we are thirsty to be known, created that way by a God who wants to know us. We make others thirsty by being salt to them.