“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water,’” (John 4:13-15).
The town Rebekah and I recently moved to is built on a river, and every time I walk through the park there, I see something new. The view is always changing, and the water reflects the sky and the rain and the seasons, but the recent drought has left the river looking especially tired.
Not just tired but thirsty. Imagine a river looking thirsty. It’s unlikely to run dry, of course, because it drains a vast hinterland. But the river does get stressed sometimes.
So, I was leaning on the bridge this morning, looking upstream into the rising sun, when it occurred to me that when Jesus talked about “living water,” he had in mind not just his spirit bringing refreshment to us, but also us then being a refreshment to the world.
And I had this vision of streams of pure water running out from churches and baptizing this parched world in a refreshing grace, constantly blessing those we come into contact with, sharing the kind of life offered by an iced drink or a cool shower on one of these sweltering hot summer days.
Living water from Jesus creating a river of life for this world!
Think about how that might work. What if the simple fact of your presence somewhere, anywhere, was all the evidence the world needs that the river has not run dry?
Imagine a river looking tired and thirsty! Imagine a church looking tired and thirsty? When all we have to do is to show up and drink deeply, all we then must do is to baptize this world with the refreshing grace of Jesus.
In love and because of love.
— DEREK
