Water! Water!

When we live Unseen, we sometimes feel exhausted emotionally and spiritually. Read on to see what I learned about where we can get our needs met.

If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water John 4:10

My husbands grandparents were farmers in the Texas Panhandle during the dustbowl.   The depression had caused a drastic drop in the wheat prices and farmers leveled their fields to harvest as much as they could. This destroyed some of the native grasses that held the soil in place. At the same time there was a severe drought and the soil was dry and dusty. The winds would pick up the topsoil and carry it for miles. My mother-in-law described great black clouds rolling across the prairie. The dust got into the houses, and covered the floors. It got into the clean laundry and into the food, and even found its way into the cupboards. I learned that this was one reason people put their glasses upside down in the cupboards. Because the crops and gardens would not grow, many farmers were terribly poor and many lost their farms.. People were dying because of dehydration, malnutrition and starvation. My friend’s mother had 6 children and was eating very little to save all she could for them. She was diagnosed with scurvy and doctors advised her to found people who would be willing to raise her children because she was not expected to live.  While different measures made the situation better the dust bowl did not end until the rains finally came.

While the stories and pictures that remain show us the devastation that can come from a drought, we may not realize the damage that can be done to our hearts and spirit from a spiritual drought. Jesus says in Luke that He is the living water. If we are not connecting to that life giving water, we may be suffering from spiritual dehydration.

Water helps us use the nutrition we get from our food. It helps us eliminate waste. It nourishes the plants we use for food. We need all these things in our spiritual life. We feed on His word, but without his power and his spirit what we read cannot come alive. When I was in my teens, I had memorized pages of scriptures. I recited them every morning. Hiding the word in my heart was good. However when my mother got sick I had a crisis of faith. I realized that unless I let those scriptures come alive in me, they would not help me. I could recite “God is close to the broken hearted”twice a day, but until I accepted it and let it work in me it was not able to do me any good. In Jeremiah 2:13, we read this.

“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.

Water is essential for growth. Psalms 1 says this

 Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

Many of us would love to have this living water but don’t know how to access it. When Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, he saw her thirst and need for things of God. John 4:10 says, Jesus told her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” He makes the same offer to us today. He is ready to give us all that we need but we have to be willing to receive it.

The drought in our spirits can be broken.

Spend time this week in God’s word and with God’s people. Drink deep of the living water that Jesus offers.