Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Water

This is my favorite time of the year~ summer! In fact, I would love to live in a place where summer happens all year long...but alas, I live in the midwest, so our summer months are few. So, now, I am basking in the heat of the sunny days; loving every minute of them...while they last!

With the heat comes the warning to drink lots of water; to keep your body hydrated. I am calling this out to the kids who gather in our backyard; jumping on the tramp, playing soccer or swimming in the pool. I will say, "Have you had water?" or "Who needs water?".

While on a long run last week, in the heat of the day, I was craving water. I didn't bring any with me and about halfway through the run, it consumed my thoughts....and I pressed on with the goal of a cold bottle of water waiting for me in the fridge! In the heat of summer, we need to make sure we are hydrating our bodies...we don't always realize how much we are in need of water until it is too late. I have experienced the sickness of heatstroke a couple times in my adult life~ chills, then hot all over, a headache, not even wanting to consume any water, and an inability to move. So, since that has happened, I know my body and continue drinking water, even when I don't "feel like" I am thirsty. I don't want to experience that sickness again!

So it is in our spiritual walk....the same warning rings true for us in the summer heat: "Have you had water?" or "Who needs water?". Jesus is the LIVING WATER who satifies our thirst. Jesus, when talking to the woman at the well in John 4:14 says, "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." Spending time with the Living Water produces in us springs of water, which well up and spill out. Are you thirsty? Are you going to the right source to quench that thirst or are you drinking from the wells that won't satisfy? Jeremiah 2:13 says, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." What are you drinking from? Go to the true well, the Living Water to fill you to overflowing with cool, refreshing, life-giving water. Stop getting the water from your own cistern; it won't satisfy for long. The summer heat dries up the water in the cistern quickly...we need to go to the deep well for all the water that gives life and satifies the thirst.

This summer, spend time drinking from the Living Well. Keep hydrated spiritually! Then you can call out to those who are thirsty, "Who needs water?" And you will bring to them the Living Water, because it flows within you, welling up and spilling out.