Love and discipline, joy and struggle, peace and storms, hope and chaos, beauty and power…in our minds, it can be difficult to understand how these can take place at the same time. We can feel so trapped when we are actually so free. We can feel so overwhelmed when we have been given so many gifts. We feel the push to love but the pull to hold tight to what we have. And yet, God is doing amazing things in the middle of these counterintuitive moments. He is working miracles when we feel abandoned. He is providing triumphs when we only see defeat.
Water is one of those great miracles. We need water to live, it is a significant part of our bodies. It fills our stomachs and cleanses the dirt from our lives. Water is a beautiful miracle. Yet it is also powerful. It can come in such force to create electricity. It can wash out cities and completely demolish lives. It is a beautifully refreshing yet powerfully dangerous creation.
Jesus’ message was that he could provide living water. This is more than refreshment from a well. This is a life changing overflow. This is the most powerful expression of life – this is true life. We crave this living water. We seek this living water. We want it to flow freely in and through us. Yet, the great power of this flow can change our lives. It can create in us such love that we love recklessly. It can fill us in such a way that we are willing to set all things free that we thought were so important in order to follow. This living water can give us true life. It just might destroy what we thought life should be. But in the end, it will be life giving, beautiful, and more than we could have ever expected. Flow freely God, through me, in me, around me…flow freely in your beauty and grace.
Focus Scripture:
John 4:13-15 “13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
SEEING THE EXTRAORDINARY 