They went along on every camping trip. My grandfather would load them up in the old station wagon, along with all the camping gear, grandmother and grandchildren. They were stone crocks. One in particular was reserved for drinking water only. It had a cork stopper in the top.
On the way into Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico was a spring. There was a pipe that stood upright and delivered ice-cold, refreshing, water from the spring. Granddad would stop there and fill that big crock full of cold water. Once we settled in our campsite he would set that crock down in the creek. Result? The most refreshing, ice-cold water I have ever tasted. When we had gone through that batch, back to the spring we would go, to fill it back up. No soda pops allowed. Two choices, that wonderful water or ice-cold milk from a glass container, also snug in the creek to keep it ice-cold.
~Thought For the Day~
Jesus is our cool, refreshing, living water. He refreshes us when we have wandered in a parched dry place in our life. We seek Him, the source of “living water.” Time and again, He will come to us. Shelter us and give us shade. Is that the end? Is that all ? Does the help stop with us and our restoration?
Once we have tasted the ice-cold, refreshing water of Jesus Christ, we are to pass it on. Share what we have learned in our experience in the deserts of our life journey and give testimony of the love of Jesus and how He brought us through. We then are to become a refuge from the drying winds of life, a shelter from the storms. We are to be like rivers of ice-cold, refreshing water running through our country. Shade from the heat of difficult days.
We have all had trials. We are all walking “How To” manuals. Our story and the part Jesus has played in our story, will be like refreshing water , shade in the heat, shelter from the wind, in the seemingly impossible situations of others. Our story might go something like this. “I was where you are. I sought the living water that only Jesus can give and He sheltered me and gave me shade as we worked out a plan to walk out of the desert that life had put me in…together…Jesus and I.
That spring was closed a year or so ago. I don’t pass by, that I am not transported back fifty-nine years. That little station wagon pulling to the side of the road. Granddad filling it full of ice-cold water to keep his wife and grandchildren refreshed and hydrated. Believers are commissioned to do the same for a lost world.
~Scripture For Today~
Psalms 63:1
1 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. ( NASB)
Isaiah 41:17
17 “The afflicted and needy are seeking water, but there is none, And their tongue is parched “with thirst; I, the Lord, will answer them Myself, As the God of Israel I will not forsake them. (NASB)
John 4:10-14
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 She *said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? 12 You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (NASB)
Isaiah 32:2
2 Each will be like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm, Like streams of water in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land. (NASB)
~Prayer For Today~
Hello Father! Thank You for sending Jesus to be our source of living water. We pray that we can offer to others the shelter, shade and the refreshing water that only a relationship with You can bring. We pray for boldness to speak up, share our experience and give You all the glory. Forgive us of our sins. In Jesus name. Amen.
©2015 Kathy Ledbetter. All Rights Reserved.