Bible, Encouragement, Spiritual Growth
Thirsty? Come Drink!
It was so hot– even in the shade.
I still had a long distance to walk when I noticed the sign, “Springhouse Well.” I hadn’t seen an artesian well for years; maybe since my childhood. The sign reminded me of a visit to my aunt’s house in rural Alabama. My dad had taken me to an artesian well on her property, where the water bubbled up into a small pool. I remember cupping my hands and drinking the coldest, most refreshing water I had ever tasted. That memory made me even thirstier, so I quickened my steps, desperate to find the well. I could see the springhouse, small and quaint, across the parking lot.
I was thirsty for refreshing, cold water.
was just what I needed on a scorching hot day like this one. The door squeaked on its hinges as I opened it and peered inside. But the well was capped. I looked around for a hand-pump or faucet, but none was in sight.
No water
…only a sign to mark the place where people had once drank. Disappointed, I stepped back outside. The springhouse was beautiful, but beauty wasn’t going to refresh me or satisfy my thirst. I left the springhouse as thirsty as I had come.
Our modern culture still craves fresh, living water.
Even when they can’t label it.
Even when they try to satisfy it with different things. God has lavishly supplied a crystal clear riverhead in the heart of the Church; still, our culture desperately attempts to quench their thirst from religious mud puddles.
Could part of the problem be that the riverhead is dammed up and diverted, so it does not flow out of the Church?
You cannot answer for the Church at large, but you can answer for yourself.
I have to ask this question, because people around you are thirsty…
Is living water flowing out of you?
I went back to the campus where the springhouse was located after publishing the book “Precious Holy Spirit”. I wanted to get some pictures to use in my blog. I was excited. The campus was as beautiful as I remembered. Wayne and I drove to the area where the Springhouse should have been located. It was gone. We crisscrossed the campus. We stopped a grounds keeper and he confirmed our fears. The spring house had been torn down.
Nostalgia isn’t reason enough to keep a building that has lost
its purpose and no longer functions in that purpose.
What about the church?
Have we loss our purpose or no longer fulfill that purpose?
Is the living water accessible?
What about your church?
What about you?
Do you function as a place where living water flows? Are you salty enough to cause thirst?
“Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” John 7:37b
Yet there is a danger that we will do what Jeremiah said Israel had done. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Jeremiah 2:13Don’t miss what God has for you! Don’t miss opportunities to bring life to people that need Jesus.
Chris Tomlin’s single “Waterfall”