By Pastor Rich Bitterman
The mic hit the stage with a hollow clink that will ring in some hearts for the rest of their lives.
He was thirty-one years old.
Today would have been his thirty-second birthday.
This morning, the list of “31 Ways to Live Like Charlie” went out into a world still stunned by the sound of that single shot.
The microphone lay where he left it, blood seeping toward the base. The lights above kept burning, catching dust in their beams, refusing to blink. His last sermon hung there unfinished like a sentence mid-breath.
Now the world speaks in fragments.
And whether we’re ready or not, we are all living in the pause.
A Psalm for the Thirsting
Psalm 42 begins with an ache.
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.”
I’ve read those words a hundred times. But today, as I think of a young man who would not soften his voice to stay alive, Psalm 42 doesn’t ask for answers. It gasps for God.
The psalmist is describing the moment between survival and death. The moment a deer can no longer lift its head but still drags its body toward the brook.
Every one of us walks through a desert of noise. And when men who speak with conviction are silenced, that desert gets louder.
Charlie’s death is a headline. But it’s also a mirror.
The world will not thirst for us. The question is whether we still thirst for God.
Instructions for the Thirsty
Turning Point USA released it this morning: “31 Ways to Live Like Charlie Kirk.”
Read slowly, it doesn’t sound like a political statement. It sounds like a young man who lived on purpose.
Honor the Sabbath.
Read your Bible every day.
Go to church.
Send Scripture to friends.
Get married.
Have kids.
Be bold and courageous.
Become ungovernable.
This isn’t a self-help list. It’s a trail of breadcrumbs left by someone who drank deeply.
I imagine the list taped on his fridge, ink smudged by a wet hand. Maybe a verse underlined. Maybe a coffee stain on the corner. Maybe he lived it more imperfectly than people think. But he lived it. Loudly.
The world doesn’t hate quiet Christians. It hates thirsty ones.
The Wrong Path
Some of you are standing at the edge of that stream and trying to drink from an empty cup. You’ve told yourself that the next time you’ll do better. That if you just want it bad enough, the sin will forget your name, holiness will finally stick.
You won’t.
Willpower doesn’t save anybody. It rearranges furniture in a burning house.
Philippians 2 says God works in us both to will and to act. Only He can reroute the currents inside a human soul. Only He can turn thirst into living water. And the disciplines we practice…prayer, meditation, fasting, study…are not engines. They’re doorways. You place yourself before Him, and He does the work.
The deer drags itself to the brook. God provides the stream.
Trying to change yourself with willpower is like cupping sand in a hurricane. It scatters before you can swallow.
God is the only one who can reach into the furnace of your soul and turn stone into flesh. And the way you meet Him isn’t through perfect technique. It’s through thirst.
A wilderness thirst.
Thirst you feel when you’ve been knocked flat by grief and all you can pray is, “God, help me breathe.”
The Right Path
Charlie’s list mirrors something older. The disciplines of saints and psalmists. The work of kneeling before God with your jaw in the dirt.
When you fast, your stomach growls like a caged animal, and something inside breaks loose.
When you meditate on Scripture, the words start to move like water over dry ground.
When you serve, your pride gets peeled back like bark.
When you sit in silence, God speaks louder than the world.
None of it earns His love. It opens your ribcage to it.
The Dangers Along the Way
But beware. Pharisees love checklists. They will turn kindling into commandments and call it holy. They will measure your faith with their ruler. They will forget the water and worship the cup.
And mystics love waiting without walking. They will sit in a field forever, whispering, “God will do it,” as their thirst dries them hollow.
The path is thirst and movement. Knees in the dust. Heart cracked open. Eyes lifted toward a God who actually answers.
The Mic Is Still Warm
In the days after Charlie was killed, people left flowers and flags at the foot of stages where he once spoke. Some left handwritten notes. One person left a microphone.
That image has not left me. A mic, wrapped in tape, resting on the cold ground like a sword at the feet of the fallen.
That’s what this moment is.
The world is loud. Truth is dangerous. And faith that stays hidden will dry out and die.
Psalm 42 is a war cry from the thirsty.
God doesn’t need your polish. He wants your thirst. He wants your shaking hands. He wants you on your knees in a world that hates conviction.
The list Charlie left behind isn’t about perfection. It’s about allegiance.
To a King.
To a Kingdom.
To living like your soul isn’t for sale.
So pick up the mic. Pick it up from the bloodstained stage. Pick it up from the dirt. Pick it up where louder men fell.
Then thirst out loud.
They didn’t bury his convictions.
They handed them to us.
For more devotions click here.
Sign up for my email list here.
For a list of other essential Christian reads click here.
Enjoying this content? If you’d like to support my work and help me create more Bible-centered resources like this devotion, consider buying me a coffee! Your support means the world and helps keep this ministry going.
