The body needs about 3 quarts of water a day to operate efficiently. It helps break up and soften food. The blood, which is 90 percent H2O carries nutrients to the cells. As a cooling agent, water regulates our temperature through perspiration. And without its lubricating properties, our joints and muscles would grind and creak like unused parts of some old rusty machinery.We moved to Northern California in 1984 and served on staff at First Baptist Church, Pleasanton, California. The town was in the valley just 40 miles east of San Francisco, California. We were like fish out of water, when in reality we were Missourians in California. But it was in California we met some of our dearest friends and to their credit they were real about their Christian faith. No pretense, no act, just real believers. I became very good friends with one of our church members. Oh, we were friends with them all, but this man became a very good friend to me and a true brother in Christ. His name was Pete Iversen and Pete liked to mess with your mind from time to time. He was very mischievous and loved to laugh and make others laugh. Pete played tennis and we became tennis opponents in the first few weeks of our friendship. Pete was a member of a local indoor tennis club and I would bum off of his membership once a week. Our weekly tennis match got pretty heated from time to time and his mind games made me want to play mind games back at him. Instead of stopping for a water break when we would switch sides, Pete would walk on by and say,”I haven’t work up enough of a thirst yet.” So I wouldn’t take a water break either. Now my body and Pete’s body had two totally different levels of sweating and my not taking a water break affected me much different than his. After playing two sets with no hydration, I was starting to feel some dehydration pains, but I was not going to admit it, and I was winning. We finished the last set and Pete said, “You look a little pale David. Are you feeling ok?” To which I replied, “Oh yeah, no worries.” I loaded up my tennis gear, got in my car and started home. When I got home, I walked in the door and this cramping feeling put me on the floor writhing in pain. As I was moaning and groaning, Andra said, “What’s wrong?” I told her I hadn’t had much water and I thought I was dehydrated. The lack of water was not only making me thirsty but denying my body of important liquid in order to function properly had taken it’s toll. Of course, after drinking some gatorade the pain subsided and I was ok. Hydration was vital to living and the discomfort of not hydrating was unbearable. Lesson learned. To say the least, I took my water breaks from there on. Our bodies need water, so does our heart!!! Jesus in John 7:37-38 speaks to the matter of thirst. John 7:37-38 37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said,streams of living water will flow from within him.”
Streams of living water? Not liquid, but water for soul satisfaction. We need that water for the heart, the water that quenches the thirst of a dry soul. But also, the water that supplies nutrients for a soul that is totally dependent on God. Here is a further explanation of the difference between water for the body and water for the heart in John 4. 13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The thirsty heart is a heart that longs for the deep fellowship with the Heavenly Father that can only be realized by those who have found new life in Christ. Without that fellowship, all those who desire to have their life thirst quenched will be left wanting and without. Jesus told the Samaritan Woman that if she drank of His water, the water of the Spirit, she would never thirst again. That same promise is true for all who call Jesus their Savior and Lord. Here is the thing. When you have Jesus, you don’t pass the opportunity to drink from that water that satisfies your heart’s dryness. Why? Because you know you cannot live without it and you begin to feel the heart pains of dehydration when you ignore the Spirit’s thirst quenching water. But we still do it don’t we? We let minutes become hours, and hours become days, and days become years, and we go through time without being refreshed and then we start to feel the pain of spiritual dehydration, when we should never, ever have to feel that pain. Where are you at right now in your walk with the Lord? Are you passing by chances to refresh yourself of spending time in God’s Word and time in deep, heart changing prayer? Then it is time to realize that you cannot continue to deprive yourself of the soul satisfying water only Jesus can give. Are you thirsty? Then drink, and drink some more, until you are filled again and again. The lack of spiritual moisture only makes for dry bones and you know how useful dry bones are. Not much!! Allow the Holy Spirit to refresh your heart and quench your thirst by spending time with God throughout your day and ask Him to show Himself to you. He will do it. Then that living water you have will soon be flowing through you like a stream to be realized and accepted by others so they can be refreshed as well. We need to be water bearers and live lives that show what spiritual hydration looks like. What does it look like? It looks like Jesus. Enough said!! The Pilgrimage continues…. David Warren