deeper thoughts:A Fountain of Living Water

My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV)

Rivers of living water [the Holy Spirit] will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says. ~Jesus in John 7:38


On Sunday I learned a life-lesson from a fountain in the middle of a cemetary.

It was an ordinary yet beautiful fountain. The waters left forcefully from a single opening at the base, shot upward about five feet high and formed a circlular ceiling that then arched down back into the manmade pond.

For close to an hour I sat captivated as I watched the water recycle; rising and falling and rising and falling again, continuously. My eyes fixated on the rapidly-moving droplets as they sparkled in the spring sun. I listened to the fountain's roar as the water surged, arched, and splashed.

It seemed so full of power. And I found it hard to imagine anything, not even a huge log or rock, being able to hinder or stop its steady flow.

I thought about it operating ceaselessly: all throughout the day and all throughout the night, with or without people gathered around it; during the all seasons of the year.

I couldn't avoid the metaphor:

we who belong to Christ are called to be fountains of His living water.

Oswald Chambers writes in reference to John 4:14, "The picture our Lord gives us is not a channel but a fountain...We are to be centers through which Jesus can flow as rivers of living water in blessing to everyone...Keep at the source, guard well your belief in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow for other lives, no deadness and no dryness" (My Utmost for His Highest, 9-7).

As I sat there and stared at the fasinating fountain, I heard some questions: "Am I living like this fountain? Am I resting and abiding in Christ's pool of Living Water or am I trying to operate out of a broken cistern? What do others see and hear when they look at my life? Is anything blocking or hindering the flow of the Holy Spirit in me? "

And then I prayed:

Lord, forgive me for thinking that I can dig my own cisterns and rely upon myself for strength. Thank you that I cannot remove myself from your pool of living water; thank you for constant communion. Help me to be like this fountain. Let me continuously pour out into others as I pull from you, my life-giver. May the sights and sounds of my life reflect you, my True Source. Forgive me for thinking that I can dig my own cisterns and rely upon myself for strength. May I never cease to spring up and flow full of your blessings, even in darktimes, even when obstacles come, even when others are not watching...And keep my heart and life pure, so that no worldy contamination will block the Spirit's power in my life...

Thank you for this lesson from a fountain. May I never forget its sound.

Amen.