This week I’m waiting as my family drives across the country, so we can be reunited. Sometimes my thoughts settle on being alone; sometimes my thoughts settle on the togetherness to come. I’m waiting. I wonder what you’re waiting for right now.
Are you waiting for God’s direction? Waiting for forgiveness? Waiting for an explanation? Waiting for restoration? Waiting for help? What are you waiting for?
I wasn’t sorry to see our first brown Winter in the high desert give way to earlier sunrises and blue skies. More rain that we expected punctuated the cold months behind us, but the landscape stubbornly stayed draped in a palette of faded out browns and grays. Lifeless. Drinking in the rains, but lifeless still.
While driving across the high desert to a conference last week, I noticed the wait is over. Life has come back to the desert in bright purples and swatches of yellow complemented by white accessories and occasional red surprises. Everywhere, life blooms. In fact, it never really left. In the dark and thirsty days the earth drank deeply of living water, waiting to grow again. When we’re waiting and thirsty, we have to keep drinking deeply in anticipation of new life.
There was a woman who was waiting for forgiveness, restoration, understanding, and rescue. In her dark and thirsty days, she met Jesus. She asked why he spoke to her, noticed her, acknowledged her. All things she was waiting for. “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’” (John 4:10) As we’re waiting for new life, we can be drinking living water.
I wonder what you’re waiting for. I wonder if you’re like me, tempted to stop asking for or drinking deeply of living water in the dark and thirsty days. Jesus wants us to drink deeply, expecting we will live again. If we neglect the living water available to us, we will surely stay dry and desperate without blooms to come.
While we’re waiting, we can drink deeply of the living water Jesus offers through:
- pouring out to God in times of personal prayer
- praying with a refreshing friend
- listening to music full of hope that washes over our spirit
- meditating on portions of scripture, soaking in truth
- being with followers of God who overflow into us
- choosing to be present in worship gatherings with others
- journaling what God shows us as we drink of living water
As you wait for new life, drink. As you wait for new life, drink living water. If you’re in a dark and thirsty place, drink deeply. Let God’s truth and the refreshment of His Spirit soak in while you wait. Stay full of Him and look forward to the Spring to come!
