Hydrated

It is probably appropriate that 'hydrated' will be the title of my message Sunday.  Our 1st service is called "The Well" and the implication is obvious (we hope).  People go to the well to drink and be hydrated.

Water is vital to our survival.  People can go without food for weeks, but it is believed that we cannot survive without water for more than a few days ... 3-8 days specifically.  Your body is about 60% water.  When I do lawn work in the dog days of August, you can be assured that I intentionally hydrate before, during and after my work.  It is vital for our survival.

I think this might be why God's Word and the person of Jesus are expressed as LIVING water.  Jesus tells the woman at the well (John 4) that 'anyone who drinks of the water He offers will never be thirsty again.'  At the festival of Sukkot (Feast of Booths) Jesus tells the people "Anyone may come to me.  Anyone who believes in me may come and drink.  For the Scriptures declare, "Rivers of living water will flow from His heart" (a promise about the Messiah).

I have a question for Sunday and for today.  Where do we go for water?  Do we seek water ... sustenance ... from sources that are fleeting or do we seek living water from the eternal heart of Jesus?  Are we satisfied with water that interests us for a moment but doesn't satisfy ?  I ask this because I think our entire society is in a holding pattern of the non-vital.  We are intensely focused on the non-eternal, non-important, and non-life-giving.

I constantly run into people who are empty, unfulfilled and wanting.  I remember reading Haggai and I believe these words are relevant to our society today.  "Give careful thought to your ways.  You have planted much but harvested little.  You eat but never have enough.  You drink but never have your fill (Haggai 1:5-6)."  One version of this passage says we have holes in our pockets.  We want to be filled and we wonder why Game of Thrones ... Fortnite ... online gaming ... Facebook ... Instagram ... or any of our other 'recreational' pastimes leave us with an emptiness we cannot quite grasp.  Then we visit the nursing home, read to our kids, go on a mission trip or work at our church and get a profound sense of satisfaction.  Yet, rather than learning the lesson of our experience, we return to the meaningless.  Why?

I encourage you this week to think about spending time, energy, passion, money and life in those things that truly mean something.  Why not invest in the eternal?  As a spiritual being, those are the things that 'hydrate' you.  Without them your spirit will shrink and/or perish! I hope you will see me on Sunday and say, "Thanks ... I needed that!" Randy