The buttercups and the grass reach up for the sunlight. The warmth and life being given by the sun is evident all around. A red is seen on the grass and new life springs up all around.
I was praying and I had a quick image flash up where I was reaching up and a massive mosquito jabbed into my hand and suddenly all my arm became useless. The image stayed with me as I prayed.
What meaning can I gain from this?
Is this telling me not to reach out to grab opportunities too quick, but to pray?
I have been seeking my path for the coming year as God tends to keep me waiting some days, or he tells me and I miss it. Opportunities had arisen and I have not gone for them when they could have been what God had wanted. Or I had jumped at other safe opportunities but nothing really has come of them.
When opportunities arise, I must be sure to pray first and seek guidance to be sure God wants me to act.
Or is this telling me I must not over extend. Not to overdo my tasks because when God calls we must be ready to act and we must be refreshed and ready for Spiritual warfare.
15 And David said with longing, “Oh, that someone would give me a drink of the water from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!”
For some reason I have been coming back to this verse. The story of the three great warriors that hear David utter a longing to drink water from the well of Bethlehem, and so they go out on an adventure to break through the Philistines camp to get some water for King David. It wasn’t a request that he was going to die if he didn’t drink this water, but it was perhaps just a longing for some good old homely memories. Perhaps he had fond memories of that place. Perhaps it was a longing when one comes back from a long trip to have a good old cup of Tetley tea, or Yorkshire tea, or what ever your drink is that you just unwind with?
But David did not drink this water because he poured it out to the Lord. Perhaps it wasn’t so much the water as a longing for peace, to return home.
Something that seems also fascinating is that if King David had drank the water he would have been thirsty again not long after. He was not after a drink to sustain his life.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem and he talks about giving the water of life – the Holy Spirit is given by Jesus.
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
The two passages seem to connect!
The water the warriors brought back was just water, and David would have been thirsty again afterwards. The water from Bethlehem by the gate suggests the Holy Spirit given by the Gate, Jesus. Pouring the water out for the Lord is our service being offered to the Father through our high Priest Jesus Christ.
Just like when the Samaritan women in John 4 went out and preached about Jesus, that was her sacrifice to the Lord, that was her pouring herself out for Jesus. We must do the same and go and pour ourselves out.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit is telling me to further seek God in prayer, to be renewed. To not over extend my reach, and not to reach for the glass of water that I will be thirsty again from, but to reach out for the everlasting river of life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Dear Lord, you are indeed Holy in your perfect trinity. Help us all to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance which is through Jesus from the Father. Help us all in our daily walk when we are thirsty of spiritual thirst then provide for us so that we can go out and proclaim your truth which knows no bounds or prejudices. Your truth looks equally at each of us as your individual adopted sons through Jesus Christ who sacrificed himself for us. Just like the blood of your son was poured out on the ground and could have fed the grass, and you raised him from the dead through the Holy Spirit. Help us to be poured out so that we will be empty and you can fill us with your Spirit and we can be Christlike through our walk with you.
Amen
365 Exhortations 