My freshman year of high school, my friends all decided to take PE as their elective. Though I was much more suited to the yearbook class I ended up taking for the rest of my high school career, that first year I succumbed to their peer pressure and the chance to get more time with friends during school hours. Much to my chagrin, the class was taught by a coach who firmly believed there was no better way to warm up the body than with a one-mile run.
On the first day of PE, I emerged from the girl’s locker room with trepidation as my school-issued gym shorts stickily clung to my legs in the Alabama August heat. I remember thinking that being the last to finish the one-mile loop around our school would be the worst thing to ever happen to me (if only we could hug our 15-year-old selves, right?). So I ran, sprinting around that track as fast as my never-ran-a-mile-before legs could carry me. And when I finally came to the end, the only way to describe how I felt is to use the words of the Israelites as they wandered through the wilderness: “Why did you ever bring us up from Egypt to kill us…with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3).
While in that story there is a very clear physical need for water, I can also remember the desperate need for living water screaming from my soul. I can recall believing all the insecurity and identity lies, and what poured from my depths was a desperate hope of being liked and wanted by my peers.
I think in many ways that’s why we love to tell the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in our Bible studies and our churches. We sense the same longing in her that we feel in ourselves, that ache to belong that brought her and her jar to Jacob’s well at noon. She encounters Jesus and leaves with the living water of the Messiah flowing from her. Even if nothing changed on the outside about her circumstances, she carried this gospel confidence into her town and gifted them the good news of the Messiah’s arrival. And it changed many lives.
It’s no accident then, that only a few chapters later, John writes Jesus’s words as He teaches at the Festival of Shelters: “The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him” (John 7:38). It’s like our hearts have hot and cold faucet taps: I can turn on the scorching tap of rejection, shame, fear, etc., or I can let the cool, refreshing tap of living water flow over and out of me. Jesus will be the living water either way, but there’s a very clear difference between a heart that’s living as if it trusts in the living water it already has, or the one that keeps going back to the hot water and feels its burn. As we think about what it means for Jesus to be our living water this Advent, I pray His love flows into those places where your heart is most longing to be seen, known, and loved.
Amen
To be seen, known, and loved. Wow! So many times I think no one gets me. But when I come to Jesus I know he sees me, knows me, and loves me. He is my God, my Truth, and my refuge
Lifting you up now, Tiffany.
I pray that the Giver of all good things, our Emmanuel, will be very near to you and fill you up with the peace that passes understanding. You are not alone.
I love how the author of the devotional describes turning the ‘hot and cool taps on and off’. It paints a clear picture in my mind and is a beautiful way to look at our lives and using Jesus as our living water.
I really need prayer for my anxiety. I feel like it’s taking over and ruining my marriage. I know that i stress my kids out and i just hate so much that this is a struggle for me. I’ve tried counseling .
How do i stop this ???? please pray for me !
Father God in the name of Jesus. Help our sister Tiffany as she seeks you for healing in her mind and in her heart. Just like the Israelites looked to the serpent and were healed let us look to Jesus who died for everything that concerns us. That died for the sins that so easily besets us. Lord as we learn to keep our eyes on you give us the rest you promised us. Let us rest in your love because perfect love cast our fear. Our sister is fighting for her family bind everything that comes against her family and her sanity. Help her to look to you in Jesus name
Praying for you, Tiffany! I know how draining, discouraging and exhausting the struggle with anxiety can be. Praying that God gives you the peace you need in this season and the strength to keep fighting!! Don’t give up!
If you haven’t read the book Calm my Anxious Heart. I recommend it for anxiety
Praying for you Tiffany! I know how painful and isolating anxiety can be. Asking Gods love to come like a healing balm to you so clearly whenever anxiety rears its ugly head. I ask for full healing for you. I pray your family extends you supernatural grace and that the sting of guilt that you’re not being or doing enough would be completely removed in Jesus’ name!
♥️
GRAMSIESUE… I live about an hour or so NE of Kansas City (in a rural area between Weatherby and Maysville). Let me know if you ever head to KC!
DOROTHY was in the KC area too… are you reading with us during this study, DOROTHY? (I am guessing not, as you post regularly.)
Amen!