April’s rain showers can remind us of God’s power to refresh and renew us. In all its forms, water splashes wonder into our lives. This typically rainy month is an excellent time to discover more about how God acts like “living water” when we trust him. “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them,” Jesus promises in John 7:38. Physical water is a symbol of what fulfills spiritual thirst: God’s love flowing through us.
Recently, I made a pilgrimage to the southwest Virginia village where my paternal great grandparents Isabelle and James lived a century ago. Their house is still there, directly across the road from a mountain spring. I hiked a nearby trail that followed the path of the mountain spring water and found many moments of wonder along the way. There was so much water flowing underground that the ground felt spongy under my boots, and the trail was covered with bright green moss from the moisture. Since it was cold, ice formed on some patches, growing up from the ground in shiny crystalline columns. Water flowed abundantly out in the open, as well, through a meandering stream beside the trail. All that water reminded me that the same God whom my great grandparents trusted long ago is worthy of my trust today. God is always at work. He says in Isaiah 43:19: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” The Bible refers to God as a “spring of living water” in the book of Jeremiah, in both verse 2:13 and verse 17:13. In John 4:13-14, Jesus tells a Samaritan woman he talks with at a well that, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
As I walked along the mountain spring, I reflected on the deep faith of my great grandparents, and how that faith connected them to the wellspring of God’s living water. I never met them, but I’ve often been inspired by their examples, because God’s love flowed through them to many other people. They lived ordinary lives – Isabelle was a homemaker and James was a train conductor – but they had an extraordinarily positive impact on others through their loving service as parents and in their church community. Every day, they welcomed God’s living water to flow through their lives. We can make that same choice each day.
So, this month, let water inspire you with wonder that strengthens your faith in our “living water” God. These blogs can help you do so:
Learn more about discovering wonder through nature in Wake Up to Wonder.
Blessings,
Whitney