A Time for Water

Early spring photo of our house taken by "Lake Life" friends Steve & Sue Hage from their airplane!

I remember a time, maybe twenty years ago, when I was attending a training at a church, not my own, and the church felt dead. To this day I’m not exactly sure what was going on in that place, but I ended up in a bathroom stall, crying out to God. Silently weeping (trying not to be discovered) desperately whispering the words of a Psalm—

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water…. (Psalm 63:1) 

To this day the first eight verses of Psalm 63 (memorized in an old translation) are my go-to,  deeply engrained. When I am old and senile I’ll likely walk the halls of memory care quoting David.

It was a season for water. I’d been falling head over heals, into a deep dive of God’s unexpected love. 

How He loves. Oh how He loves. And if His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.*

I listened to Crowder on repeat, and I memorized everything I could find in Scripture about my Source of Water. 

Isaiah 55:1—

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters…

Jeremiah 17:7—

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream…

It’s everywhere, when you start to pay attention. 

Years later, Scripture’s water metaphor is still one of my favorites. 

This week Tyler Staton’s words about WATER** inspire conversation for two of my small groups. Our “Lake Life Group” which met on Sunday; and a Women’s Study meeting later this week. Staton unpacks the Bible’s imagery in five sections—

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Part One: Creation

In the beginning, two kinds of water…

Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2).

And—

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden… (Genesis 2:10) 

Part Two: Roots

The prophet Ezekiel envisions an Eden garden, nearly identical to our Bible’s bookend chapters. The banks of a river. Trees on each side. Water flowing east, from the Temple, bringing dead things to life. (Ezekiel 47:6-12)

Part Three: Jesus

The Feast of Tabernacles, priests pouring water down the temple steps. Jesus chooses this very moment to declare himself the Water’s Source. “ And then…

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:38) 

Part Four: Then

“As the story unfolds in the pages that follow, everything the river was in Ezekiel's vision, the church became in the world… overwhelming dead places with unstoppable life.” (Staton, page 40)

Part Five: Now

“Ezekiel was not invited to observe the river but to swim in its waters, to become a part of it. Jesus offered the same invitation—to come and drink that we might become the source of the river itself.”  (Staton, page 41)

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Which brings me to my current obsession with water. 

Four and a half years ago Kyle and I built a house on hill, overlooking a lake. It has been for us, a place of refreshment. A place of healing. God’s gift of life. We’ve found ourselves in a lingering season beside quiet waters, the Shepherd restoring our souls. (Psalm 23) 

And yet. Lately I find myself wondering about another image. The image of jumping into the river. Joining God’s people. Propelled by His Spirit. Not receiving… but BRINGING the Water of Life. 

For a while now I’ve been quite certain of the Spirit’s movement, and not just for me. I believe, like a prophet, who sees the moment, sees the need, embodies the River, and goes ALL IN… 

There is a time to drink, and a time to go, and I am not alone. WE are the River. WE are the Temple. The source of water. You. We. Us. The Church. The Body. Followers of Jesus. 

This world is desperate for water. 

*How He Loves by John Mark Mcmillan

**The Familiar Stranger by Tyler Staton