Sometimes we can feel like we’re in an arid state of mind and spirit. Dry from running too fast through life, not stopping long enough for a refill or repair.
We quench the parch only to get thirsty again . . . and again. Our schedules are filled to the brim while we leak out trying to fill the holes with even more distractions. Ever been?
When I was growing up, we had a well and a rain barrel out back. The good water was almost as refreshing as the pure spring water down the road where childhood pal, Mary and I stopped along our bike ride on summer days. The spring was different from the well and the barrel because although they both held water, they both leaked. The spring didn’t run dry – it’s still there. My Dad tried to repair the wooden barrel, but it seeped till it split. Droplets trickling out unnoticed until finally bone-dry.
A little like me, maybe a little like you.
The difference between a well and a spring – a spring is a natural occurrence where water continually flows but a well is dug by humans in search of water. It can run dry.
Too often we pass by the spring on our way to the well.
Wells were vital in the land of Israel and cisterns were carved out of rock to collect the water in times of drought. The prophet-man, Jeremiah spoke God-given words to the foolish people that abandoned the fountain of living waters to replace with the man-made. They turned away to do their own thing. Idols – those things we place before God in a finite attempt to fulfill when we bow to ourselves.
The people turned away from the living and pure to drink from the stale and stagnant. The ancient story tells of that generation to this generation seeking the worldly to try and plug the dam.
Current idols are more subtle than the ancient ones. But, we can identify them if we look around our moments.
Twenty-five hundred years later since Jeremiah’s warning, it comes back to the biblical truth that nothing replaces the Living Water still available to refill and renew us – we don’t have to become dehydrated by life.
Man can do amazing things, but we cannot create water. We can filter, distill, color, flavor, and load it with vitamins, but we cannot create it. A tricky scientist may correct me while mixing up some oxygen and hydrogen, but I know man can-not create Living Water. . . . ever.
So, when you’re feeling parched, and aren’t we all? Stop by for a drink from the sobering truth – God is a gushing fountain, a spring of living water. Jeremiah 2:13
Verna
Thank you for this very refreshing post Verna. So much encouragement. I love the way your sentences flow, captivating our thoughts to have your message swill around our minds and leave the truth there. “Too often we pass by the spring on our way to the well.” Lord, please open our eyes to the bounty you have placed before us and keep us from believing we have to search far and wide for the answers to quench our needs. You are the Answer and You are here with us now. Now and always, for You have promised to never leave or forsake us. Your well never runs dry. Thank you Jesus. Amen.
He is the Answer that never runs empty . . . thank you for your kind comment, Liana.
Dear Verna,
I remember an old rusty pump and a large moss-coated, woody smelling rain barrel, blackened with age, at my uncle’s summer home on the Perkiomen Creek in Oaks, PA, which he used as a Christian camp in the 1950’s.
Your imagery made me recall the grating squeak of the handle of an old pump when I was a camper to draw ice cold water into a white porcelain basin to wash my face. During a rain storm, I sat on the porch and listened and watched the rain splash into the rain barrel, and I still associate the smell of ozone during a storm with that barrel.
I was cautioned, however, not to drink stagnate water from the barrel only the running water from the well.
They were days before the stress of being a grown-up and jumping into a furious pace a living; drying up with stress from time to time, but eventually seeking “the living waters” and the Scripture’s promise that no burden was too heavy for our Lord to carry.
Then I was refreshed and renewed just like that cold splash of water on my face from my porcelain basin. Thank-you for the reminder to seek God’s “gushing fountain of living water.”
God bless you, Lynda
. . . and YOUR imagery took me right THERE! Wow, thank you Lynda for adding this great comment – I look forward to hearing from you!
Love this…God is a gushing fountain, a spring of living water…and we don’t have to become dehydrated by life.