Living Water

I used to struggle to fall right to sleep when I was a little girl. I can remember lying there for what seemed like hours as the little clock next to my bed would tick away, ever the reminder of how slow time was passing. I have memories of feathering my hair out onto the pillow and tucking my blankets tightly around me and pretending that I was Sleeping Beauty. I would purse my lips and imagine "him" walking in and seeing me there. He would be overcome with my loveliness and soon...I would fall asleep. This method was a tried and true bedtime practice. Don't judge me.

Married for almost 18 years, any delusions I had to how lovely I look while sleeping have been completely forsaken. Rob sees. Rob knows. If there is any doubt that I am less than heavenly to behold, the dried slobber on my cheek when I wake up, the crazy bed head, the crusty eyes or my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth would certainly clear that right up. Seriously. I snore like my grandpa. My morning ritual looks a little bit like a train wreck. While my eyes adjust to the light coming through the window... in my sleepy state, I start to knock everything off of my nightstand in search of my water. My mouth is like the Sahara. It is like I have been walking in the desert for days. My tongue feels like it is twice its normal size and I need to do serious work to get it off of the roof of my mouth. I even sleep with a humidifier now and...(sigh)  nose strips. It is so...not pretty. I don't even care if the water bottle is mine in the morning, "Give me that sippy cup, child! I am dying here!".

I have been reading a great book with the other ladies ministry leaders in our church called, "Running on Empty". It is the gospel for women in ministry and it is really good. Like taking a big gulp of water in the morning good. It's truth has been refocusing my heart and my attitude and reminding me that Jesus fills best.

Much like being asleep and waking up completely parched, I wish I was quicker to realize how much I run to other things, other people or whatever to fill me up before I am panting for His living water.

 Truth is, I am learning to lean into the tension right now.  I am learning to be thankful for the revelation of my own inadequacies and limitations. They open my eyes to my need for Him. I love that when I run to Him with my thirst that I am not met with disappointment or with disapproval. I love that He is never surprised by my constant thirst and need. I love that His cup is always full and that His hand is always extended to offer to me big gulps of the truth of His sufficiency and His goodness in my life.

I am surrounded by so many options. So many resources. So many physical fixes that I am often completely frustrated and exhausted before I realize that I have been coping and managing instead of falling and resting at His feet. He meets me there and He does more than just quench my thirst, He offers "rivers of His Spirit" to flow through my life.

The author of the book I am reading wrote, 

"Our weakness can become our strengths because they reveal our need; they turn our focus from ourselves to Christ (2 Corithians 12:10b)...When weakness reveals our thirst and we go to Christ, He responds with rivers of living water, an overflow of His Spirit. When Jesus quenches our thirst with his Spirit, our weaknessess have become our BEST FRIENDS because they remind us of our inability to do anything apart from Christ. Leaning into our strengths, gifts and abilities creates an illusion of spiritual competence, but leaning into our weaknesses grounds us in our need for the Spirit to produce lasting fruit in and through us."*

Being needy and weak is not a coveted attitude or position to find yourself in this culture. We work really hard to avoid looking weak and needy. At least, I know I do. This is the beauty of the cross. Admitting who I am, not running from it, I can better embrace the beauty of Jesus' sacrifice. Acknowledging my need and turning to Him will activate the work of the Holy Spirit in and through my life. I need Him. Every hour. Every waking minute.

 There is freedom, there is power and there is great joy in running to Him and finding all I need. Finding more than enough. Finding rest.

My life might look different from the other women and men in my life. My struggle to remember that He meets me where I am with refreshment and perspective might be totally polar from others. The weaknesses might be different, but the answer to those weaknesses is the same. It is HIM. Let me, like the samaritan woman at the well open my hands to the life giving water of the gospel and in my need, in my great thirst cry out, "Sir! Give me this water!!" 

"On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive." John 7:37-39a

*"Running on Empty: the gospel for women in ministry" by Barbara Bancroft