So you’ve been hiking a hilly area on a hot day and you’re tired and thirsty.
Your steps take you by a small pond with where you see slightly green water.
Your body is craving hydration and calling you to chance a face-first gulp of the fluid, but then you hear it faintly in the distance.
It’s the sound of a rushing stream. Not loud, but real nonetheless.
Making the no-brainer decision, you turn away from the stagnant pond and move closer to the sound.
Minutes later, you’re standing by a stream where cool, clear water is quickly flowing.
In Gideon-like manner, you kneel and begin drinking, one cupped hand at a time.
“Ah, this is SO much better than that pond water,” you tell yourself.
One doesn’t have to have actually experienced the above scenario in order to appreciate its message.
Flowing water is nearly always a better choice than stagnant water when it comes to consumption. It’s just the nature of physical life and how biological pathogens reproduce when not disturbed and so forth.
And so it is with things spiritual.
Christians who stay busy and are headed places are Christians who are more refreshing to those around them.
A congregation headed toward goals and making efforts to go to its community is a congregation that provides more spiritual refreshment to people whose lives are dry and thirsty.
We’ve all seen Christians who fall into the trap of complacency, either because they think God hasn’t gifted them with abilities to serve or because they think they’ve already done enough work for God and now it’s time to retire from faithfully serving.
It’s sad. And it’s wrong.
Jesus came to bring streams of Living Water, flowing from the fountain of God’s heart and mind.
He didn’t come to be the divine pond into which we randomly lower a bucket whenever we become parched.
Flowing water is so much better for us,
In life and in faith.
Listen to the words of Proverbs 18:4.
“The fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.”
Drink from the Bible, my friend. Read it as if it were a cool, clear stream in a dry, hot land.
It’s refreshment will revive you and your testimony as to its goodness might lead to others drinking from the bubbling brook of biblical wisdom.
Holy hydration is always the better choice.
The more that you and the members of your congregation drink Living Water, the more energy you’ll have for staying busy in bringing refreshment to the parched souls all around you.
As always, I love you
Martin
