The Lord has been speaking to me very frequently as of late about WATER. It was amplified today (which is now yesterday!) when I woke up only to discover that our water at the hostel had been shut off. It made things a bit awkward, as the toilets weren’t exactly in working order and I had to find another way to wash my face and brush my teeth. We headed off to the school in hopes of returning to a shower, but alas, we returned to discover the scenario had not changed. The city of Manila is currently without running water for who knows how long, and I am left to smell and feel like a child of the dump.
God answers prayer; it is true. I just didn’t expect him to answer my pleadings to become a child of the dump in this way! So here I sit, recognizing that I have the option of allowing this to make me bitter or teach me an important lesson.
God tells us in Isaiah 55, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
Are you thirsty? He’s inviting you to come to the waters! This water is free; you must only come.
In John 4, we read of the Samaritan woman at the well whom Jesus asks for a drink. She questions his asking of her since she is a Samaritan, and Jesus responds in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Jesus then goes on to tell her in verses 13-14, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
I love the way this is worded. Jesus is offering her a fountain of water springing up into EVERLASTING LIFE. I always imagine a water fountain bubbling forth from my insides. It’s fresh water, clean and pure. All we have to say is, “Give me a drink!”
Imagine it’s a horribly hot day, and your tongue is sticky and dry. All you can think about is how parched you feel. As you take a drink of an ice cold water, you are suddenly overwhelmed with how refreshing it tastes. It takes your breath away as you are reminded once again of how GOOD water can be!
Wouldn’t it be nice to never thirst again? But alas, we will continue to thirst in our flesh because water is vital to our existence. When we lost water privileges today, I realized even greater how much this is true. We need it desperately!
We must come to the waters every day and ask Jesus for a drink, but that is for another blog on another day.
