Thursday, July 16, 2020
Living Water
Reflects
The Creator’s Glory
Isaiah 55:1
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
John 4:14
Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’
Words of Grace For Today
Water, water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink!
There is a story that comes to mind, of two young men shipwrecked and blown far away from their course and out of the frequently travelled shipping lanes. One trusts that God will save them. The other doubts God exists at all. While the doubter works to catch fish for food, the faithful one throws their desalinating water filter overboard. While the doubter sleeps having Gerry-rigged a rainwater collector, the faithful idiot dismantles it and throws it overboard.
With water everywhere, they thirst for the water that gives life: fresh water.
While the faithful believes he has water that will keep him from thirsting, the doubter does everything to use what water is available, mixing urine and scant rainwater to minimally re-hydrate himself. The faithful prays, trusting God will save him … and falls into a coma.
Idiot faith is not the faith Christ gives us. The faith Christ gives us is hope-filled and practical; wise and perceptive; overly generous and gracious; self sacrificing and self preserving.
The water Jesus gives us keeps us from thirsting, and common sense is not lacking. Life and all it requires of us is filled with Jesus’ water, gushing up like an artesian spring, not so that we can test God’s miraculous intentions towards us, but so that we can follow paths that give life, to ourselves and to all around us.
God does not exact a price for the living water. Jesus has bought and paid with his life for it, for us. Not only does God provide us water, living water, that gives us breathe, faith and hope; God also provides us all we can eat. We come, we buy with all that God has provided to us, Grace! And we are filled, never to be thirsty or hungry again; no matter the challenges life throws at us.
The two young men were rescued. Both were alive, barely, the faithful in a coma for hours already. He never recovered and died. – One has to wonder what St. Peter had to say to him! – the doubter after many difficult months recovered, and lived the rest of his life, never doubting God’s love for him and those around him.
There is living water for all!