Receiving Living Water

We are told several places in the Bible that if we ask, we will receive.

Matthew 7:8 "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
Matthew 21:22 "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
Mark 11:24 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
Luke 11:10 "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
John 16:24 "Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."

Of course, we know that doesn't mean God is a magic genie who grants us everything we ask for. He is a good father, who knows how to give us good gifts. We get a hint of what is meant in Luke 11:13...

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

It is the Holy Spirit that God gives to those who ask Him. Getting "stuff" or favorable circumstances is different than receiving from God. Too often, we seek to fill the God-shaped hole in our souls with stuff or favorable circumstances when what we truly need for our joy to be complete is God Himself and the Holy Spirit living in us. Indeed, we need to empty ourselves of the stuff we have shoveled into the God shaped hole so that we can position ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit.

I think we seek to fill the whole with stuff because we want to be done. We want the hole to be filled, end of story. That's how we view being satisfied. We don't ever want to be empty again or have to do the work to be filled again. When offered living water by Jesus, the woman at the well summed it up perfectly...

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." John 4:15

Living water fills but it doesn't stay once for always. It's a continual process of receiving but that requires letting go of what we just got in order to receive what we are continually being given. Like a river, the water in one place is never the same. It isn't stagnant. It flows so that it can bring life, changing you, nourishing you to grow and bear fruit. Death is what happens when we fill the hole once for all, trying to hold onto what we are given at one time and place. It is getting but not growing and therefore ultimately not living.

Perhaps one of the truest miracles about God is that He is both constant but ever flowing. His promise of abundant life is life that flows without end. There is no once for all getting, which always leads to death, just continual receiving that brings life and growth and joy.

Of course the trick is to let go of the desire for the tangibleness of the security that comes from getting and holding to embracing the flow and trusting the constancy of the source. That is why we ask for living water and His promise is that we will receive it through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Fishes & Loaves

It seems every Sunday for weeks on end, my kids leave Sunday School with some sort of Fishes and Loaves craft. It is a simple story that is oft told. Indeed, the story of how Jesus fed 5,000 with a little boy's lunch of two fishes and five loaves is so well known that most of us don't truly appreciate the miracle of it or what it is meant to tell us for our lives today.

This was powerfully brought home to me recently reading a selection from the Women of Faith Amazing Freedom devotional about this story. In it Sheila Walsh points out: "He gave what he had to Jesus, and in return he got to see what God can do when heaven and earth hold hands. This miracle on a hillside is repeated over and over every day from Pittsburgh to Paris, from New York to New Zealand. It is the mystery and miracle that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ is invited to participate in -- bring all you have to the table, and see what God will do!"

She goes on to say "Too often we miss the point as daughters of the King. We look at what we have to offer, and it is clear to us that it's not enough so we hold back. Yet the fact that we don't have enough is the whole point. We are given the outrageous invitation to partner with the King of kings as lavishes his love and grace on this earth....Whatever you have today is enough. It might not look like it to you, but put into Jesus's hands, it is more than enough."

That really hit home for me as I SO often think I just don't have what it takes so why bother trying? This really made me see that all that is required of me is to bring what I do have and give it to Jesus.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. --2 Corinthians 12:9

I never got the above verse before. I didn't understand how God could use my weaknesess, without actually fixing them first. So I kept bringing them to him and expecting them to be fixed, snatching them back when He didn't fix them. Unknowingly, preventing him from using them for His miracles. Now, I'm finally beginning to get that God truly does just want me to bring me and put myself in His hands and see what He can do with what He has been given, even when it is clearly not enough in my hands.

There is freedom.

Travelling Heavenward

One of the devotions in my Bible asked the question, "What would happen if, before getting out of bed tomorrow morning, you asked yourself, 'How will I travel heavenward today?'"

I am headed home but I am still on a journey and I need to remember that how I travel is no less important than where I am going. Indeed, where I am going must influence how I journey or I will miss the blessing that awaits me. The where and the how are intertwined and cannot be separated from each other.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the same essential idea from Jesus:

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul (Mark 8:36)

The same devotion also directed me to Psalm 84:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. (Psalm 84:5)

We are on a pilgrimage to heaven and are strength is to be in the Lord on that journey and to have our hearts fixed on making the journey, even if it's difficult. It strikes me that it is very easy to have our hearts distracted from pilgrimage and where we are going. The how of the journey will quickly follow that distraction. If I find my how is messed up (I am short-tempered, lacking joy, missing the fruits of the Spirit, etc.), then I can be certain that I have also lost site of where I am going.

I believe if I can keep where I am going in mind (my heart is set on pilgrimage), then the how of my life will flow more naturally. When I focus too much on the how on its own, I end up going in circles and acting out of my own strength, which cannot bring the blessing. When I know where I am going, I receive the strength of the Lord to continue on the journey to the blessing He has prepared for me.

How will I travel heavenward today?