You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. (Isaiah 44:3)
…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.’ (John 4:14)
He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. (Revelation 21:6)
Thought
Two separate events have happened over the past week that have made me think about water.
Rob and I had a bit of a staycation last week and as the weather was so warm and sunny we decided to visit two local gardens. We visited the first one last Tuesday and the gardens were absolutely beautiful, they were full of flowers and colour. We visited the second one last Wednesday and imagine our disappointment when we found that the gardens were tired, almost completely without colour and looking well past their best. The contrast between the two gardens was great.
What we had noticed at the first garden was that throughout the beds there was an irrigation system in place so that the plants never went thirsty, they always had a supply of water to keep them looking their best. In the second garden there was no such irrigation system and the plants had dried out and died off due to the lack of water.
At the beginning of the week, as the weather had been so good, Rob had cleaned our car. It looked lovely, all clean and shiny. It didn’t last long however, as some of our neighbours are having building works done at the moment and clouds of dust have been repeatedly blowing along the road covering the car in layers of dust. By Sunday it was looking very dirty indeed. However, yesterday morning, it rained and the rain washed all the dust away leaving us with a lovely clean and shiny car again.
Water is so important to our existence, like the plants in the gardens, it refreshes and sustains us, but like the rain that fell on the car, it also makes us clean again. It is no surprise that there are so many references to water in the bible. Jesus himself tells the Samaritan woman whom he meets at the well that ‘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’. We all need this water in our lives. When we come to God and spend time in his presence we are refreshed and sustained and through the death and resurrection of Jesus we can be forgiven of our sins and made clean.
Prayer (Noel Richards)
To be in Your presence,
to sit at Your feet,
where Your love surrounds me,
and makes me complete:
this is my desire, O Lord,
this is my desire.
Amen