Tag: water

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Life

Living Water

Have you ever felt so excited about something that you couldn’t contain yourself? You just had to tell your friend, your neighbor, the person you met while walking down the street? This news you had was just too good to keep inside. It was like something that was bursting out of you that you couldn’t control!

The Joy that Jesus brings to my life is like that sometimes. Almost like a geyser, the Spirit bursts forth from me, usually in songs that I know, and that Joy comes out with it. It is literally energizing to have this happen, and spend the next several hours with music coming out in hums and whistles and fragments of song.

Jesus talks about this in the Gospel of John, chapter 7, verses 37 to 39: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”

This “living water” that Jesus spoke of, the Holy Spirit, is obviously so much more than just a song. But His work in your spirit could be through tears and repentance, or through joy and song. And I know that one way in which He works (at least in me) is to bring back to my remembrance Scripture that I’ve learned in the past — or possibly a song. And regardless of how He chooses to work in me today, it gives me something I can use to water the thirsty land around me, if I choose to let it flow!

Denny Correll released an album in 1979, Standin’ In The Light. One of the tracks on that album, Living Water is a joyful song that explains what I’ve said above in different words. Enjoy!

I grew up in a shack by the railroad tracks
In the funky part of New Orleans
All the people would come from miles around
Just to hear my grandpa preach
They would line up in the streets

He would shout, “Hallelujah!”, as he’d lift his hands
And tell them ’bout the glory train
With a tear in his eyes a Scripture he’d read
From the the Gospel in his hand
He had to make them understand

He’d say, Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life

He would say, “I was a sinner, just like you
Before the Lord set me free
By the Spirit of Truth my chains were loosed
From the Fountain of Truth you see
Now Living Water flows through me!”

He’d say, Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life

He’d say, Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
Categories
Life

Thirst

You’ve been hiking for hours; your water is running short, and what water you have is warm and not at all very appealing. You are getting very dry, and weak, and don’t feel like you can go much further.

But up ahead is a cool green clearing in the forest, and the sound of a babbling brook! You enter the clearing and there you see a well with water gushing up through the center. It runs down into a pool, and out to form a small stream off to one side. And the water! It’s cool, clean, and more delicious than anything you’ve had for a long, long time.

You sit down and soak your aching feet in the cool waters of the pool. All the weariness that had been building up just drops off. You feel your energy returning, and a renewed ability to complete your task.

Water is one of the most critical needs of life. The only thing more needful is the air we breathe. It would be difficult, but a person can go for quite a while without food, but only three to five days without water. And when you are dry, it can take only a few swallows of water to make a significant difference in how you feel.

In John 4, Jesus had an encounter with a woman at a well. He asked her for a drink of water next to a well in the town he was visiting. During their conversation, he offered her a drink of living water, water that would not only quench her thirst, but would itself become a well within her (John 4:13-14).

Dallas Holm, Tim Sheppard, and Phil Johnson teamed up in 1981 and released an album (called Holm, Sheppard & Johnson) of music that included the song, Drawin’ From The Well. The harmonization on this song is so mellow and good. When it hit the playlist I was listening through today, I did something I never do. I replayed it over and over and over. The peace it imparted to me was like the refreshment of that water. I hope you enjoy it also!

Drawin’ from the well
Drawin’ from the well
Drawin’ from the well
That will never run dry
Drinkin’ Living Water
Provided by my Father
Drawin’ from the well
That will never run dry 

There’s a well where I’m livin’
Eternal life it’s givin’
It washes all the pain and care away

I’m standin’ in the flow
It’s runnin’ right through my soul
And the source will last forever and a day

And I’m drawin’ from the well
Drawin’ from the well
Drawin’ from the well
That will never run dry
Drinkin’ Living Water
Provided by my Father
Drawin’ from the well
That will never run dry

Oh, it fills my life
WIth assurance that I’ll never thirst again
And oh, the days and nights
Are full of joy that comes from knowing Him

And I’m drawin’ from the well
Drawin’ from the well
Drawin’ from the well
That will never run dry
Drinkin’ Living Water
Provided by my Father
Drawin’ from the well
That will never run dry