Heart Tracks - River Of Life

37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:37-38...."The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles...The obstacle is a matter of indifference to the river which will flow steadily through you if you remember to keep right at the Source." Oswald Chambers

Behind the home I had in Northern Virginia was a waterway named Bull Run Creek. I'll never forget how, on those times when heavy rains came, it would rise far above it's banks and would flow with an amazing rate of speed. It could be an awesome sight to behold. One day, when I came to the above verse in my Bible, the picture of that fast, overflowing creek came to my mind. I knew it was the Lord showing me just what the life of a believer is supposed to look like to both the world, and to Him. We are to be a fast flowing river of His life to all we come into contact with. Culturally, socially, and spiritually. The Source of the river is Himself, and the vessels of it's flowing are His people. When that creek would rise, it would claim land not normally covered in drier times. So should the lives of His people be; overflowing with life, blessing, and His presence. Does that look anything like your life and mine?

That question brings me to another memory of a place I once lived. I served Him for the first few years of my ministry in West Texas, a usually dry area of the world. I remember my District leader Gene Fuller remarking, "We have rivers in West Texas, there's just no water in them." He wasn't really wrong. Most of the time the water flow was little more than a trickle, if it flowed at all. I wonder if our spiritual lives are not a great deal more like the rivers of West Texas than they are that creek behind my home in Northern Virginia? Why is it that they are? How can it be that they are? The answer is simple but convicting; we either lost, or never really had a deep connection with He who is the Source of all Living Water.

Jesus said that "Whoever believes in Me, out of them will flow rivers of living water." If our response is "we do believe in Him," then how can it be that those waters are not flowing out of us? It can only be that our "believing" is a surface belief at best. It doesn't go deep, it doesn't connect with Him. It is not rooted in Him. It is not a deeply personal and intimate belief. We trust and depend more on the temporal than we do in Him. What's around us is more real than what we profess to be within us; His Spirit of Life; the Source of our Living Water. As a result, we're as dry and thirsty as the world we've been sent into. To that world, we look nothing like Bull Run Creek. We look like the dried up rivers of West Texas.

In the arid Middle East, wells were and are a source of life, and usually, one has to dig deep to reach the waters below. But when they are reached, life is available in the arid lands above. In our spiritual lives, we will not reach these waters with a few verses each morning, and a generic prayer prior to heading out for the day. We will also not reach them when we have blockages of sin and disobedience in our lives. We reach them when we confess that we are literally dying of spiritual thirst, and we cannot survive unless we drink of His water. When that happens, we will not only drink of His river of life, we shall be vessels of it. So much of it that His Life will overflow the banks of our life and lay hold of land where it had not previously flowed. I want that to be my life. Do you want it to be yours? Or, are we going to be content to be a West Texas river that's a river in name only?

Blessings,
Pastor O