In Search of the Living Water

In the Gospel of John 7:37-52, Jesus tells us in part, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'"

St. John's explanation of these words of Jesus is, "Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified."

The Holy Spirit stays very busy. Many people are thirsty for peace and a meaning of life. It is through the Holy Spirit that we can come to Christ Jesus for a drink of the "living water". Once our heart is primed, the living water received will pour out of us by many times.

The circuitous and long route that we take for our drink of the "living water" can be amazing. Adventurers and Explorers go searching for experiences that ultimately teach them something simple about life.

Admiral Richard Byrd was obsessed with being the first to fly over the North and South Poles. After achieving these feats he was still not satisfied. He led another expedition to the Antarctic to establish a winter weather station near the South Pole. Having a team of over fifty men at base camp to chose from, Byrd made a last minute decision to man the station by himself for the winter months.

Byrd was taken 120 miles over treacherous ice to the weather outpost and left on his own. Seven months later he had to be rescued as he was near death from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator that he used at the remote station. He had a lot of time alone at the outpost to think about life.

Finally, this last real adventure of Byrd's taught him a few simple things about life and family. This absentee husband and father had to leave his family and go thousands of miles into unexplored territory to find out that his joy was there at the beginning of his long journey.

We are like Admiral Byrd. We search the world over for a drink of the "living water" only to find it frozen. We have to bring it home with us to let it thaw out so that we can truly understand its meaning to us.

As the character "Dorothy" in the movie The Wizard of Oz said, "There's no place like home." We must be at home with the Lord and our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is there through the Spirit that by believing we can drink the "living water" and it will flow like a river from our heart.

Thoughts about our Creator

Our Lord God has been involved in our lives from the beginning of Creation. He has known us before our birth and has helped us in all that we do and will do in turning to Him. No matter what treacherous storms come upon us, He is there and will be in the future. We look forward to spending eternity with Him.

Psalm 90:1-2 speaks to us in saying, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

As we stand in God’s shadow that He casts from His resting place, we live in His security. Nothing can separate us from Him and this is our comfort no matter what happens to our physical presence and existence on Earth. God’s care for us is an easy task for Him as His strength controls all things and our defense is guaranteed.

Long before our Earth’s place in creation and its features and were determined, our Lord and God has been with us and His everlasting presence is eternal with us. God’s time is unlike our worldly time. It knows no beginning or end. The beginning of His creation is like a yesterday to Him. The limits of our sequential time have no affect on God’s time.

We, the children of God, are always in the today, the now. We don’t exist in yesterday or in tomorrow, so all our efforts should be directed to the present moment of life lived. Like the waters of a river, our today keeps moving from upstream to downstream, never resting in the same place.

God is our hope for our today’s to come.  He guides us while we live our lives and takes us into His presence when this life is done. It is then we turn our clocks to God’s Time, which is eternal.    

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is like a huge rock in the middle of the ocean. The gospel rock is our salvation. The ocean currents are the natural world's pull on us. If we spend all of our time swimming in the surf or floating in our raft we drift away from the gospel and the Lord. There is nothing out in the vast ocean that can save us. If there is trouble we must get back to the gospel rock. If we drift too far out from the rock and into the strong ocean currents, we will pay a price. Our safety is on the rock. The ocean's waters may be enticing, but our true salvation is on the rock.

When I compare life to this metaphor of the gospel rock in the ocean I can get a better view of the situation that we are all in. We live most of our lives in the surf around the gospel island rock. We live out in the surf because of our sinful nature. The abuse of our God given free will moves us off of the island and into the surf.

Jesus the Christ has provided us a way out of our sin by His invitation to come back to the island rock, which is covered with the fruit of the gospel. We have become comfortable living in the surf and we enjoy our journeys out into the deep. We have been offered an opportunity to come back to shore, but we are slow to return because we figure that it will always be there. We risk everything by allowing ourselves to be moved by the currents in the ocean world. We spend most of our existence trying to get out of troublesome situations that the worldly currents have put us in. We must quickly start swimming to Shore.

In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews 2:1-10 we hear:

"Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the message declared through angels was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

Might's and Mites

The world is infested with might’s and mites. Both of these can disrupt the world around them. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes mites as: “any of numerous small acarid arachnids that often infest animals, plants, and stored foods and include important disease vectors.” House dust allergy is caused by species of mites.

“Might” can be defined as the past tense of “May”. That is to say, “I might start reading a daily devotional, but it’s just hard to work that into my busy schedule every day. Not performing “might’s” that God is calling us to do in our lives can be harmful, just as the “mites” described above can cause issues over the course of time.

Most folks remember or have heard of the round wood or metal coin called a “Round Tuit.” Credit is given for the appearance of these to a vendor at the New York World’s Fair back in the early sixties. It was designed as a humorous way to draw attention to how much we put off in our lives that we should be doing for our own good. These “Round Tuits” were very popular and helped people remember the necessary tasks before them.

As we deal with the life that God has given us, we put off many things we should be doing. Not the least of these is our relationship with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit and in seeking Him in all things. 

In exploring the before described “Mites”, we find in a Wikipedia explanation that they have abilities that most of us humans don’t have:  “Mites are among the most diverse and successful of all the invertebrate groups. They have exploited an incredible array of habitats, and because of their small size (most are microscopic), go largely unnoticed. Many live freely in the soil or water, but there are also a large number of species that live as parasites on plants, animals, and some that feed on mold. It is estimated that 48,200 species of mites have been described.”

Oh, that we could be so meticulous in our endeavors with the Lord, as these mites are so bound to their existence and well being. We can seemingly do all the things we think are beneficial in seeking the Lord, but we are sometimes doing it on a part-time basis. Our relationship with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit is a full time adventure.

In John 4:35 Jesus speaks to us: “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I [Jesus] say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”

We must seek this relationship in every moment of our lives. Like the mites, we must live it as an existence as important to us as all the other little things we do to exist as humans. Mites don’t take breaks and we should not take breaks with the Lord.

We must live in the present moment with God and not start thinking about tomorrow. Proverbs 27:1 tells us: “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” And then in Proverbs 10:5 it says: “He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.”

A part-time relationship with the Lord is not going to bear the fruit that our Lord and Master desires of us. God has given us a way to overcome the dangers in His giving us Free Will in this world. That is by surrendering ourselves to Him in every moment of our lives. Our choices in life can work in opposite ways. We have to live with the bad choices we make in life, but by the choice of treating every moment as sacred and having God as the Chairman of our Board of Directors, bad choices disappear and life’s ups and downs become manageable.