Streams of Living Water

  My book flowed out of me yesterday -- I wrote 5,000 words and then realized my sequel is already at 50,000 words! I am 2/3rds of the way done! I love being a writer when words stream out of me like living water. It is as though the book comes alive, and someone else takes over my hands. I find myself making facial expressions as I type, mimicking what my character is doing. It is magical. I completely lose myself in the process and become one with the book. That sounds freaky, I know, but it really does sort of feel like that. I do not feel at all like the creator, but the conduit.

It gave me a new appreciation for all the verses of living water in the Bible. There are many of them, describing the spirit of God flowing like streams of living water, and welling to eternal life. Our heart will be so filled that we will "never thirst again." All desire will cease because we will have become one with God, filled to overflowing. All we had longed for will be satisfied. We will cease to be separate, a fluid and flowing continuation of God. His Spirit will be poured out upon ours, and we will be eternally and inextricably part of Him. Jesus describes this unity with God in John 17:23 -- I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

It is so important to recognize, and to teach others under our leadership or counsel that the "stream of living water" doesn't begin with us. It flows through us but not from us. It is the result of a relationship with Jesus who is the source and strength. He is the stream of living water - we just get to drink from it, and if we are faithful, tell others it is there!  

As I was musing about this truth, a wonderful fellow pro-life sidewalk counselor  sent our group this quote from the book she is reading:
"By instinct, habit, and enculturation, all of us tend to think of counseling as a human-with-human interaction. But in fact a human-with-Savior interaction must come first. When I as a counselor don't get that straight, I inevitably offer others some sort of saviorette. If my counseling does not help others rely upon Another (upon whom I also rely), I will inevitably teach them to rely on themselves - or on me, or other friends, or medications, or or techniques, or pablum "truths" (that are in fact empty or even fictional). "(David Powlinson - Speaking Truth in Love)

I love how God is constantly reinforcing the thoughts of Him upon which I am dwelling. If I believe and guide others, including my children, as though I am the source of wisdom and strength, ultimately they will figure out I am not very wise or very strong, and we will both suffer. But if I point them to the source of my wisdom or strength, they and I will both be drinking from the stream of living water, bubbling up to eternal life. That is my desire.

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John 4:14 

But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 7:38 

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

John 4:13-15 

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Revelation 21:6 

And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

Isaiah 44:3 

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.