WHEN YOU’RE OUT OF LIVING WATER
Christine Wyrtzen
If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. Psalm 119:92
In the morning, drink a tall glass of water. Then spend the rest of the day in a cool house, reading a book in your favorite chair. It just might be that you won’t feel thirsty again till dinnertime. If pressed, you could probably go till the next morning without feeling a crippling thirst. Why? Nothing depleted your system of water.
Every morning, I take a drink of living water. If the day is relatively stress free, that drink will easily sustain me. I won’t feel an intense thirst for more because that which might deplete it is absent. Let the fires burn intensely however and I will be on my knees in prayer, in the Word, fortifying myself with fresh supplies of living water. Trekking through stressful territory taxes my spiritual resources. The heated exercise leaves me in a weakened state. It is like a seasoned athlete who treks through the desert heat without any provisions.
David admits that his affliction has been so severe that the Word of God was the only thing that enabled him to survive. Have you been there, meaning that you have known affliction but survived only because of the lifesaving power of the Word? Every person, sooner or later, becomes intimate with affliction. Most perish by exhausting all their own resources, turning inward for more, but finding themselves empty. With no access to grace, they adopt a posture which appears to sustain. Anger, revenge, cynicism, even apathy. To stay teachable, tender, and childlike in the midst of cross-carrying can only be accomplished by constant infusions of grace.
I was not meant to perish under pressure but to soar on the wings of grace.
You have graced my life with a considerable amount of affliction – even from birth. Through it, you have taught me how to need you. Oh, how I do. Thank you for planting me on your riverbanks. Amen
Originally published Thursday, 12 April 2018.
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