Lord, You have talked to me a lot lately about water. Literally and metaphorically. How I need to drink more. How I need to be refreshed by the streams of Your Spirit flowing into and through my life. And I keep thinking the two are connected somehow. I don’t seem to get thirsty during the day so I don’t even think about drinking, staying hydrated. I need one of those computer watches (not really) where I set an alarm. What does that say about me, that I feel I need to set an alarm to remind myself to drink?
It says that you are overloaded. Also, you learned in grade school to go without water.
Oh, my gosh, I just had this memory, after gym class, going to the drinking fountain and I was so thirsty, and gulping down water, but a teacher stopped me, said I couldn’t or shouldn’t drink so fast. I forgot all about that. And the message I got, even if unintended, was not to drink period. And there truly wasn’t time. There was only one fountain for each hallway, and no time to stand in line and get a drink and make it back to class on time. And since I brought my lunch, I learned to eat without drinking anything too. Well, well. Makes sense now. I am going to have to work at this.
Now let’s talk metaphorically. There have been times you have tried to draw clean, clear, soul-quenching water from other people’s wells, wells that in some cases were muddy or polluted, even poisoned. Those wells, unless they become capped and sunk new and fresh in a relationship with Me, are never going to give you the water you need. Never. You can carry shiny new buckets, you can buy longer, stronger ropes, you can persuade others to help you lower and raise the bucket–it doesn’t make any difference to the quality of what is in those inner wells. You can keep trying and keep being hurt and disappointed. You can give up and sit by the well and mourn there. Or you can choose a third way. You can purpose to pray for those wells, as you walk away toward the fresh-flowing Stream of My Love, through My Spirit, flowing not only directly into your soul but also flowing through so many others who delight to give you fresh water.
Receive from all the streams in your life, too many to count or name. And other than compassion and peace, give no more thought to the muddy, dry, polluted or poisoned wells that dot the landscape of your family or friends. You have many more streams in your life than wells. It is not your job to clean up or purify those wells. This is between each of them and Me, and it is something they each must decide and choose on their own. Frolic at the stream. Perhaps they will hear the joy and want what you have. But (and this is important, and this is also hard, I know) even if they don’t, don’t go back and try to draw water from there. Even if I send rain, as I have many times, rain showers of blessing, as long as their wells are polluted or poisoned, the rain is quickly assimilated into the polluted water that is how they think and feel, how they treat others and themselves, and the false ideas and opinions they have about Me.
Well-purifying is not your work, sweet one. Go to the stream. That is your source of receiving and giving. Go to the Flow.