LIFE GIVING WATER
18th May 2022
During our time living in a Christian community, it was our habit to meet at 9.30am each day for an hour of worship, word and prayer. The older children were at school and the little ones cared for, so their parents could be waiting on the Lord. If you got into the meeting room early you would find Colin, our leader sitting in the “pink chair” writing in a notebook.
One day I posed the question, “What are you writing?” and his answer intrigued me, “I’m listening to the Lord.” It was his daily practice; but at that time in my life I listened only in an emergency and when I had decisions to make, but not on a daily basis. Over the years I have learned to follow Colin’s example and to sit quietly and listen to the now word - encouragement, correction, direction, instruction and much more.
Recently the Lord emphasised to me the privilege of having a spring of living water within me that I can draw from at any time. If I am thirsty, I can access the spring of the Holy Spirit for wisdom, refreshment, encouragement etc. As humans we find ourselves locked into routines which can be good and useful for training, but God wants us to be turning to Him constantly accessing heavenly resources, and living by reliance on living water whose source is the Holy Spirit.
We have an invaluable internal spring which will never run dry, but whether we draw from it or not is up to us. Without it we rely on human strength and our own limited wisdom. The spring that I am talking about is life giving, it is wisdom, healing, abundance in every area of life. So why don’t we constantly draw from this amazing provision?
When Jesus talked about this in John 4 to the woman at the well in Samaria, she reached for it, “Give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus was not talking about natural but spiritual water. Your desire or thirst will determine how much you drink; and the more your partake the more you will want!
It is supernatural and both satisfies and demands you drink more, and have more to give away. In Judges 15:18 we find Samson, battle weary and thirsty. In his conversation with God he says, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst?” God opened up a spring, he drank and his strength returned.
Today, drink and be revived, strengthened and resourced from a far greater internal spring, opened up within you by Jesus. You must do the drinking, no-one else can do it for you!
by Joyce Sibthorpe
