Daily Scriptures March 6 2007 First Thoughts

Psalm 34:1-22; Jeremiah 2:1-13, 29-32; Romans 1:16-25; John 4:43-54

When I’m thirsty, I forget about good old water – my taste buds are conditioned for soda or a hot cup of coffee. Quenching our spirits is like that. How soon we forget that our thirst in life is for God. Maybe some of us have never stopped long enough to look around and see the evidence of God in our lives, in creation, in the lives of others. Once in awhile, I go to the well, and ponder the darkness and then drink deeply. Once in awhile I get a feeling of thanksgiving and make the connection between the wonders and provisions large and small around me, and God who created them. Once in awhile, I give up all that hinders my search for living water – usually in Lent.

But mostly, I get caught up in my routines, even “righteous” ones, and miss the evidence all around me, among the mystery. I never go to the well at all. I find other ways to satisfy my soul. I believe God gives us evidence all the time, of God’s existence, and God’s purpose, and provision. And God tells us every day what is expected of us: To love God and do justice, and walk humbly in His ways. Come to the well and drink.

We don’t see what this looks like if we don’t even look for God along the roadside, in the quiet, on the mountaintop, at home in school, in our families, and drink from Him the water that is our life. God has placed cisterns of water everywhere, but we have turned away.

For as Jeremiah says of Israel, ¹³for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

Paul understood all this – and warns us in Romans 1 if we forget the Creator and Sustainer of our lives, if we depend on water from leaky human-made wells to be there for our thirst, we will die. The water will never be sweet wine. ²⁰Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; ²¹for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. ²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools…

For depending on what is unseen can be risky and politically incorrect and plain stupid in the eyes of the world. But we have no excuse: we say we believe and we know God through God’s word, and we have the living water of Christ in us by faith. We have seen people healed – even our own lives have been transformed, if we think about it. If we think deeply, and linger long near the water cooler.