Lessons from Rocky

Every 2 years or so, I carve out a large block of time to clean a portion of my living space that has long gone neglected. While doing so today, I found this journal entry from when I was in Karuizawa, Japan in 2007.

Currently, I'm staying with my cousins up in the mountains of Japan. Well, with my cousins and Rocky, their energetic pint-sized dog. This morning we went for a walk/run/me pulling as hard as I could to keep him reigned in. But what I really want to remember is what happened when we got back to the cabin.

Rocky ran past me inside somewhere, and I just dropped, fully exhausted, into the closest chair. Soon, I heard this odd slurping sound and went to identify the source.

In the bathroom, I found Rocky licking a pipe under the sink for any kind of moisture he could find to quench his thirst from the run. Never mind that he was leaving more moisture on the pipe than he was taking into his tiny body.

My first thought, accompanied by an amused laugh, was, "all you had to do was come to me, you dumb dog, and I would have filled you with all the water that you needed."

My second thought sobered me. So often in loneliness, I probably look a lot like Rocky after a long run, thirsty and not thinking straight. I turn to other things to fill my desperation for love and they just leave a bad taste in my mouth and suck up what remaining life I had. And the whole time, Jesus has just been waiting for me to come to him and say, "I'm thirsty - will you give me your water?"

So here is my question for us all:

How do we fill our desperation for love?