Living waters
I will sprinkle clean water upon you…A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:24
We can all feel a little hard and dry in our hearts. It builds up over time, we don’t notice it at first and suddenly the love we felt for our family, partner, child, friend can be drying up. It’s at this moment we need to regroup and remind ourselves that we are all sinners, we are all people who leak and get things wrong, but that we all need water to survive, and to thrive. So, we turn again to the source of love, God says “I am the water of life”, so it is hardly surprising that Jesus calls himself the “spring of living water” and that the image of water is used throughout the bible when talking about renewal or change or cleansing our hearts. The holy spirit fills us up, like water and just like the cracked earthen vessels that we are, we all leak and so each week we come to the spring of life and ask to be refilled again.
This verse reminds us to give back the areas we have turned to stone, to soften our hearts, both to ourselves and critical judgement of who we are and to those around us.
I think it’s really helpful to remember that we all need a wash every now and again, if we don’t wash we begin to smell, so water isn’t just symbolically about life. It is also about being clean and pure and as we turn to the source of love we are made clean, we are able to see beyond our own dirt and give hope and joy to those we find it hard to and for those we find it easy to.
There is something so wonderful about the rain these past few days, bursting forth on our dry lands here in the UK. It may not be enough for the plants but it is a release of something lifegiving flowing out over all of us. We only take water for granted until it’s not there. Who hasn’t loved a large glass of cool water on a day when it’s boiling, there is nothing so refreshing. So, drink in that love, that promise that if you open your heart to God he will transform your dry, aching heart into one that is soft and living again, one of flesh from one of stone.
Today, I woke up and listened to a song by One Hope Project “Where the Lord dwells” and I was struck by the line “Jesus, living waters, a well that never runs dry…your love will always satisfy”.
When we come to God we are satisfied in a way that is impossible to describe. Last Sunday we had a baptism at Bassingbourn Church and I was struck by the moment when we baptised the children, dressed in their white dresses, like a bride shining. It was a moving moment. The water of new life washing over them, taking away all the past and stepping into the fullness of living with God, not just black and grey, but colour.
In this dry season perhaps you can bring to God the things that have made your heart turn to stone and ask him again to make it become a heart of flesh, the areas where you feel stuck, or frustrated or filled with despair or hate or anger, or where you know you know you are
Be Blessed!
Helen
|
Church Funday - Tombola prizes, Bric-a-Brac and help: 
