When drinking deeply takes effort.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

She was excited about this pump near our campsite. It’s a novelty to hand pump your water from the ground in a culture where water flows from indoor taps with a twist or a flip! It isn’t that easy for much of the world. Many thirst for a drink within walking distance that won’t make them sick, and will relieve them of their parched existence. It’s such a basic need it’s hard to imagine being deprived of it, isn’t it?

 ^“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.'”
John 4:13-14 New International Version

Jesus, our Living Water, is readily accessible to us. Daily, Christ waits to quench our thirst as we drink in His Word and His presence.

For some of us, as new Christians, the Water felt fresh to our shriveled souls. Like my little girl, we took joy in going to the pump and accessing the Water as it sprang from deep places of the Spirit, even if it meant asking for help and instruction in our young places of faith. But as the newness wore off, we began to think it’s more work than it’s worth to nurture prayer, dig into His Word, or seek discipleship. We would rather our Water come more easily, perhaps with the flip of a page in a 5 minute devotion.

We are privileged as Christians to know where the Living Water is, even if it takes some effort on our part to access it. We need to “prime the pump” by setting time aside in His Word, stilling ourselves, and listening for the stirrings of the Holy Spirit below the surface.  How can we not make this effort as we face a world dying of thirst, in search of a crystal clear drink of this Gospel they know not of what we so readily have accessible to us every day?!

Renew our thirst for You, Living Water! May we prime the pump daily in prayer and Your Word that we may flow out with the Drink that quenches not only our own thirst but the thirst of a parched world in need of You. Amen. 

Copyright picture and text Jen Brukiewa