“Lord I crawled across the barrenness to you with my empty cup uncertain in asking any small drop of refreshment. If only I had known you better I’d have come running with a bucket.”
-Nancy Spiegelberg
“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Isaiah 55:1-2, ESV
Despair and despondency will often drive us to extremes, we are compelled to find some kind of help– and we’ll take it wherever. But as human beings we seldom exercise any kind of discernment. Rarely do we ever consider to whom, or at what we are looking to. We often just want relief from the pain.
It really seems we are drawing from poisoned wells, but we unable to discern what we will receive. We come with our tin cup, and will stand in line to accept a meager couple of swallows. Experience has taught us not to get our hopes up too high. After all, the next well will probably be dry.
In contrast, the Spirit of God is a cool, and lush oasis. There is an abundance of fresh water for all who find him. Everything is green, and it is a bit overwhelming to us who have struggled so long, with so little. It seems like we’ve been transported to another world.
But this is what God’s grace and love is like. We’ve searched and scavenged for so long. We have become jaded and cynical by our meager success. Disillusioned by all that life has offered us, we can barely look up to this next possibility. It just seems to be to good to be true, and we don’t want to be taken in again. But know this:
- Grace is a wonder.
- God Himself is the only One who can satisfy you.
His very character is life-giving and refreshing. He constantly gushes up fresh, sweet water. It is there for us, and he assumes that we will draw on it. Some of us take a lot of it, but some who are hesitant to stretch out their battered tin cups. They receive what they think they just might deserve (or somehow get away with.)
The wonder of it is that God considers himself to be the exclusive source of “water that refreshes.” There are some who will ‘point and shout.’ Some claim, “exclusiveness!” They consider all those who come to the real fount, to be manipulated into coming. But that is seldom the case.
God and His grace is unchanged. There are no tickets to punch, and we can’t generate enough of any kind of righteousness that lets us draw from the well. But the well is a gift– not a reward. It is free, and never a reward for good behavior. We all must come to the water, crippled and thirsty, or we will never come at all.
Dear one, rest in this place of refreshment. Drink your fill. Grace is extravagant, and you can fill your belly. Throw away that battered cup, and get a pail. His presence is all our heart is looking for.
I’d like to share with you what I’m thinking this morning. I hope you will persevere and go through it. I identify with the “Man of the Tombs” so much. I am sometimes asked about mental illness and demon possession, but I can give no real light. All I know is that both are real and similar to each other. Evil however has a presence about it that can be addressed and cast out. Mental illness, on the other hand, is often a lifelong issue that requires management. To complicate things there can be a combo of the two, with demonic exacerbating the medical issue. God has gifted some in the Church with a gift “the discerning of spirits.”
