Life-giving Water

I'm always amazed that God connects things so obviously for me. I'm not amazed that He is able to do it, rather that He would even take notice of me. This morning I was reading from Leslie Sansone's Walking the Walk, Getting Fit with Faith. She proposed that water is a sacred drink because it truly is part of us. Our bodies are mostly composed of water.

I used to almost never get thirsty. I don't know why, but I had to work out really hard or be out in extreme heat to feel thirsty. I just didn't recognize thirst and would sometimes mistake it for other things. I might interpret it as hunger or I'd treat the symptoms of mild dehydration, like fatigue and headache.

I knew mentally that I should be drinking more water, I just didn't crave water. Then a couple of months ago, while I was training to walk a Half-Marathon, I decided that, like it or not, I would incorporate taking in more fluid as a part of my training. After just a few days with my new habit, boy was I thirsty. I couldn't get enough water.

In her book, Sansone points out that Jesus' using water as a metaphor for spiritual life in John 4 is so apt. Because water is an essential part of our bodies, it is a good picture of Christ's presence being essential to our spirit's life. In John 4 Jesus told the woman he was talking with at Jacob's well that "Everyone who drinks this (natural) water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."(John 4:13-14) That eternal life is God's free gift we accept by placing our faith in Christ as Savior and Lord.

Just like I didn't always recognize my thirst for water, many people don't recognize their thirst for Christ, that essential element that is missing from their lives. Sure, there are symptoms that are ignored or get treated, but never really resolved. But sometimes, when the Spirit of God calls, the thirst is undeniable. Then when an individual reaches back and accepts God's provision of salvation by faith in Christ, they know they've found something that was missing all along.

So it was especially meaningful to me this morning after reading about life-giving water in my fitness book, that I opened my Bible and my eyes fell on the chapter heading: "Invitation to the Thirsty." Isaiah 55: 1 says, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters..." (NIV)