Photo Credit: CharlesFred via Compfight cc
Today I have the privilege of introducing a guest blogger, Jan Soults Walker, who is not only an excellent writer but a fantastic encourager and friend (and mom to two of the best ladies around!). She leads a thriving ministry called The Living Room geared towards young moms at Eternity Church in Des Moines, and does a fabulous job! I know you’ll enjoy her humor and insight.
Bunny trails. Take my hand and I’ll blithely lead you down a few—slightly crazed conversational detours so convoluted that Google Maps would tell you that you can’t possibly get there from here. What may begin as banal chitchat with me about wild Iowa weather careens to tantalizing details of a friend’s blueberry-packed muffins to suddenly swooning similes of strappy sandals on sale at Kohls—all within, I unabashedly admit, just a few short minutes.
So now that you understand the ADD side of my vernacular self (nice to meet you, by the way), you won’t be surprised that as I was planning a recent women’s event at my church, my thoughts turned to—big breath—camels. I know.
But I couldn’t resist the temptation to follow this latest meandering, and so I fed my gray matter a few fun factoids about these desert-dwellers:
· Camels can indeed survive for long periods without food or water, storing energy in their hump (or humps) for as long as six months with nary a drink.
· If the camel can’t get to water, he simply uses up the supply handily stored on his back and the hump deflates like a spent balloon.
People, of course, cannot mimic this remarkable feat, surviving only 3 to 5 days without water. As you dehydrate, your body quickly sends out distress signals:
· Dry mouth
· Wonky eyesight
· Cloudy thinking
· A failing heart
· And ultimately, if no kind soul brings you water, someone will likely find you in a lifeless heap.
Water is vital. You were not designed to live without refreshing, cool water everyday.
So no wonder Jesus chose this very analogy to drive home a critical spiritual truth. John 4:14 records: “But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.” And later on, in John 7:37-38, Jesus makes another startling promise: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
That speaks volumes (or liters?) about the importance of spiritual hydration. Go several days or more without trips to Jesus’ well in prayer, worship, or Bible reading, and you’ll experience symptoms eerily similar to a week without water:
· Words from your DRY MOUTH aren’t refreshing to anyone.
· Your VISION skews and you can’t see yourself or others as Jesus does.
· Your MIND is not the mind of Christ—it’s difficult to think on whatever is pure, noble, lovely, and true.
· And your HEART—your enthusiasm and courage—begins to fail.
· When you’re spiritually dehydrated, you soon become a lifeless heap.
At least, this is what happens to me when I allow the busyness of life to steer me away from Jesus’ Living Water and into the desert.
I AM NOT A CAMEL—and neither are you, of course. So DRINK DEEPLY DAILY, friends. You’ll be so wonderfully refreshed that Living Water flows from you.
Now, about those blueberry muffins…
BY: Jan Soults Walker
The Living Room Women’s Ministry
Eternity Church Clive, Iowa
Erica Barthalow 