Fasting, Ramadan, and Jesus

Salami upon you, ;)

Today the Muslim Student Association at the U of Arizona sponsored a "fast-a-thon," where if you fasted from sunup to sundown local businesses would give donations to the Tucson Food Bank. This sounded good to me, so I fasted in the Muslim style, including not drinking water, which I don't usually do (especially in a dry environment like Tucson).

So, during the day today I was noticing how thirsty I would get, especially after riding my bike or walking around. (Luckily it was quite cool today, high of 80.) After a full day of not drinking anything, on my bike ride home right before sunset I was thinking of Psalm 63, where it says:

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

It really touched me to think of the way Muslims seek, and thirst, both physically and spiritually, during Ramadan, and how Jesus wants to satisfy their thirst with His living water. At the end of the day, they (and we, and everybody else) can drink a glass of water, but there is only One who can truly satisfy the deepeset thirst of the human heart. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14). The promises of the Qur'an, the comfort of believing that you are pleasing God with your actions of piety, are like water in a desert that is poured out on the ground--the parched ground may drink it up, but its thirst remains. Only Jesus, the Living Water, is a well deep and pure enough for us to drink from, a well that will never run out, never leave us hopeless or in despair.

Muslims trace their physical or spiritual ancestry through Hagar, Abraham's wife, and her son Ishmael. Two times Hagar was out in the desert with Ishmael, having been exiled by Sarah's jealousy. Both times God met her in the desert, and provided for her and her child. In the moment of her despair, "God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink" (Gen. 21:19).

I pray that the physical and spiritual children of Sarah would not reject Hagar's children, but would reach out to them in love. But even if they do, may "the God who sees" reach out to Hagar in her loneliness and despair, and provide for her a spring that will never run dry, whose water "wells up to eternal life."

Lord, you are the God Who Sees Hagar's suffering. You are the God Who Hears Ishmael's cry. In this month of thirsting, may you satisfy the thirst of Hagar's children with your Living Water, that they may never thirst again.

.يا رب، ﺇرحم