Don't WASTE the WATER

Thirsty as I was after surgery, the big plastic mug filled to the brim with ice water quickly became my best friend during my hospital stay. I lifted it to my lips again and again to satisfy my seemingly endless thirst. Once I returned home, my sister reminded me to keep drinking lots of water so that I wouldn't compound my current medical issues with more problems stemming from dehydration. Having brought the mug home with me, I filled it and set it beside my kitchen sink, where I would see it repeatedly and be reminded to stop and take a drink. I even set a schedule in my mind of how many times I would empty its contents a day, and was faithful in keeping it.

All of us have heard repeatedly the benefits of making water our beverage of choice. We know the importance of drinking it during exercise, when living in dry, hot climates, or when trying to achieve a weight loss goal. Even when our bodies are not under stress, drinking lots of water is simply an important element in any healthy lifestyle. It's in those times, however, that we sometimes need a little extra push or reminder to keep us gulping it down. The sight of the water mug on the kitchen sink does that for me.

The written word of God is often referred to as Living Water, bringing life to our spiritual selves the way the liquid form refreshes our physical beings. We turn to it in times of trouble, when we're in an especially dry spiritual state, or with a goal in mind of increasing our overall spiritual health. Even when things are going well in our lives and our relationship with God, we know the importance of staying saturated in God's Word, drinking it in on a daily basis. Surely the Bible programs on our computers and similar apps on our phones make that process easier than ever before. The Word of God is readily available to us; we sometimes just need the reminder to take a drink.

As I've gone through my Elbow Experience, this process of blogging the lessons I've learned in the A to Z Challenge has done for me spiritually what the water mug does for me physically. It's kept the lessons of the last few months current; writing about them every day has has kept me tuned in to the sound of God's voice.

God doesn't waste anything; even His words are short and to the point. Every situation in our lives is to teach us something and help us grow. When He allows us to go through a difficult time, it's for a purpose, and we shouldn't waste the experience of the life lessons it contains. Whatever you find in the mug He sets before you, don't waste the chance to drink deep.

“Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I given them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'”

(John 4:13 NIV)

Defeating DOUBT

I look at the blank page before me, and think of how appropriate it is. At the moment I can’t think of a thing to write. Maybe I’m feeling the pressure of a topic that is so important that I don‘t even know where to begin. It stops my blogging cold.

And suddenly it comes to me. That’s what doubt does. It blanks out all the possibilities ahead of me, the evidence of God’s power and strength working in my life. They are all suddenly erased, like when you hit a wrong button on the keyboard and suddenly everything that you’ve written vanishes completely, a horror that has happened to me more times than I like to count. I’ve then searched and searched for a way to bring it back, usually to find that I have to start at the beginning and begin typing all over again.

If doubt does that to a draft, think of it’s power in the spiritual and physical realm. All the ground that we’ve gained spiritually suddenly vanishes, like that in the cartoons of old in which Road Runner runs off a cliff, hangs suspended in the air for a moment or two and then crashes to the ground below. We are the same, chasing our dreams at full speed, when suddenly doubt pulls away the ground beneath our feet and we have to regain the ground we’ve lost, step by step.

That’s a lot of power packed into a five-letter word. Thankfully, another five-letter word defeats it. In fact, faith is so powerful that just a grain the size of a mustard seed can do incredible things in the spiritual realm. Mountains are moved, prayers are answered, lives can be forever changed. It doesn’t take much. And the incredible thing is that we all have this weapon inside of us. God’s Word promises that we are all given a measure of faith. It’s what we do with it that matters.

The best way then to defeat doubt is to feed faith. And we do that by consuming the Word of God. (Romans 10:17). The Bible (an especially powerful five-letter Word!) is simply the spiritual food of choice. The more we eat, the stronger we grow in our faith, and the weaker doubt becomes in its ability to affect us at all. We simply don’t entertain it any longer.

Our faith may be a blank page to start with, but if we fill it with the sustenance found in the words of God, we find that doubt is soon defeated and the possibilities before us are endless once more.

“Jesus answered and said to them, Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you shall not only do this miracle of the fig tree, but also; if you shall say to this mountain, Be moved and be thrown into the sea, it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”
(Matthew 21: 21-22 MKJV, emphasis mine)