Water of Life

My pastor occasionally uses his back yard to illustrate a biblical point. I thought I would give it a shot but I cannot say I'll be as eloquent as he is.

A couple of weekends ago, a good friend visited from back east. We went to church together and he was in my wedding. He was fascinated by the sprinkler system since they don't have these in the Carolinas except on golf courses and football fields. Don't get me wrong, when we lived in South Carolina, we had a sprinkler. It attached to the end of a fifty foot long hose and produced a lazy arch of water sashaying back in forth. We didn't use it as much for watering as we did for letting the children play in on hot summer days like today.

The sprinkler system in my yard is comprised of about 20 miles of three quarter inch PVC pipe and electrical wire. It has a timer, dozens of sprinkler heads that spray water in various degrees of a circle and a rain gauge to tell the system if it has rained. There is a ninety percent probability that if you were to stick a shovel anywhere in my yard, you'd puncture the water line. My friend asked what happens if you don't water. "Everything would die."

So this past week I was thinking about my yard's daily need for water and our daily need to be with Jesus. I found Isaiah 44:3-4, "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams." and John 7:38-39 "... 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 within him". Jesus was speaking of the Spirit of God that dwells in all believers to nourish and sustain them in a spiritually dry world. Jesus tells us in Matthew 10:38 to take up His cross daily and to me that reinforces our need to fellowship with Jesus every day. How do we do that? Read the Bible and pray. Otherwise we wither as Christians and our testimony dies.

Remember the sprinkler's rain gauge? From time to time, I have to clean the cobwebs and dust out of it. Otherwise, the system is fooled into thinking it has rained. This is analogous to the way we are fooled into contentment by the distractions of this world. I am thinking of the television, video games, and other material items. Remember the parable of the seed sown in the thorns. The truth dies due to the lack of Spiritual water (Luke 8:7).

Granted, drawing a nexus between my yard's sprinkler system and the Spirit of God is a stretch at best but the truth of the matter is that our bodies need food and water everyday just like my yard. Our souls also need food, God's Holy Word and water, God's Spirit, to grow and be blessed and to enable us to offer our lives as a testimony to Jesus Christ.