With Joy Draw Water

 

With joy you will draw water

from the wells of salvation.

In that day you will say:

‘Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;

 make known among the nations what he has done,

 and proclaim that his name is exalted.

Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things;

 let this be known to all the world.

Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,

 for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.’ Isaiah 12:3-6

What does that actually mean? I was thinking back to my early days as a Christian. I fell in love with Jesus first and my faith grew outwards from that point. Although I was a cradle Catholic and brought up attending mass each week. It wasn’t until an experience in my teens that I made sense of some things to do with Christianity. It was the 1970s and I was a Jesus freak, identifying as a hippy type who loved the Lord rather than free love.

It was Jesus who made sense first and I couldn’t get enough of reading the gospels. It seemed it fed my spirit and nourished me. Then some young woman in a coffee shop with amazing hair talked to me and ignited in me a desire to read scripture daily. Jesus. She wasn’t a perfect person and was all over the place in her emotional life and yet God used her faith in the power of prayer. Her courage in taking the step of praying out loud in a coffe house had results in my life. If only she knew I should have told her!

Jesus became my centre, and I fell in love with the characteristics of the man he was. Obviously not sexual love, instead a mysterious engrossing fascination for the first months.

I could understand when I read about him that he was a charismatic holy man. Challenging authority and reaching out to the outcasts of his time like lepers, prostitutes and tax collectors. I loved the accounts of healing and wholeness. People’s lives being transformed because I experienced that my life was also being transformed. 

That meant I didn’t find it hard to believe. After Jesus and the Gospels, I then discovered the letters. Letters church leaders sent to each other for encouragement or guidance. These weren’t too difficult to follow, although a little harder. But most of these letters can be read as an incitement to live the Christian life in a more meaningful way, and they’re quite practical.

Then, last of fall, I started reading the Old Testament, The first books of the Bible. Then life became harder. All that strange history, bloodshed. Incest and warnings against Idolatry... It makes more sense now, but as a young man it made less so.

I was lucky though as I hit upon a method that helped. I would read the scriptures only that Jesus referred to begin with. And try to make sense of them first. I reckoned if it was good enough for Jesus; it was good enough for me as well. I’m always logical in my thinking, although not everyone can see that!

So far so good. But then people said I should read the whole of the Bible, and even that it should be from cover to cover. It took me awhile before I would even consider that.

Slowly and very slowly, the Bible made more sense, and I realised that as well as all the history, God seemed very fond of using imagery to make a point.

At last, this brings us to today’s passage. “With joy you shall draw water from the wells of salvation.”

This, I discovered, was not some literal instruction. Of course I knew that. It was instead an almost poetic and allegorical statement of a spiritual truth.

Let me go through it with you. Of course, you have the whole passage at the beginning of the chapter.

As a promise God is saying we will receive joy in our life of faith if we can only do what he says.

To draw water! I think of how important Walter is to you. Not not only is your body made-up of lots of it, but you are also totally reliant on it for your own life to continue. To continue to live you have to drink litres of it in some form or another daily. You do this to sustain your life, your physical life. But the Bible is taking this image and saying that we need something like water to sustain our spiritual life. And that we need buckets and buckets of it.

Yes, with Christ you can start to have an abundant life. Different to anything you have imagined. Remember the woman at the well [Earlier chapter]. Like her we just we need to know where and how to find the living water. The water that will sustain and build up our spiritual life. Lifting us and hydrating our thoughts, mind, and actions.

It is a source of joy, yes. If that doesn’t seem possible, just try it out. God doesn’t mind rising to the challenge. After all, his love is beyond your imagining.

Do we need a bucket to receive this joy? Well, strictly speaking, no, not at all. We need actions, though. The kind of actions that can bring us into the presence of the Holy Spirit. Back again to those things we have already looked at prayer and presence and added to this listening or reading His words. We want to fall into the hands of the living God to make him our, “All in all.” It isn’t the kind of priority that the world expects of us. The world will very often want to pull us away or distract us from this and try to tell us it isn’t important. However, it is the most important thing that we are likely to want to do for ourselves. We want to fall into the hands of the living God.

We do this by becoming present. This takes practise of course. For me, the most useful time to do this is first thing in the morning. It is, however, possible anytime in the day. It is just that personally, I feel more receptive before the day has really got going.

I’m intentional about it and decide that I want to spend time with God. Ideally, I find somewhere quiet, but I have sometimes had to pray on a crowded tube train on the London Underground. When there, I shut my eyes to try and avoid the distractions of what is going on around me. But at home, no need to shut your eyes unless you want to. In fact, you will find your own way of doing this. 

My preference is to start by inviting the Holy Spirit to be present. By saying something simple like, “breath of God, breathe on me.” Or “Lord, send your Holy Spirit to be present.” It is a simple statement or declaration of readiness.

You will in time find your own way of doing this. In my case, it helps me to pray some psalms out loud to begin with. Reading them through aloud, but of course not on public transport. Then I might feel like sitting in silence or saying some words of praise that occur to me.

I have become used to silence in private or public prayer, and I find when in silence God breaks through with me. It might happen that my thoughts go to something important to me. Either something I have to make a decision on or something troubling me. If that happens, I don’t wrestle with it. I just say to God, I surrender to you what has come to mind.

This is similar to Christian meditation, and I don’t know where the borderline is. Do I need to edit this point?

After some time spent like this on different days and in different places, you will start to see the benefits in your life. You’re tapping into what? Alcoholics Anonymous? AA – call the higher power.Your peace will increase.

 I think the effects start to become apparent after three weeks or so, about the same length of time that it takes to form a new habit. This is probably just the rough estimate. It must be different for each person.

 I’m reminded of the scripture that says, “When you pray, times of refreshing will come upon you....” [Edit Note. Find exact quote in scripture.]

 Hopefully I have said enough to interest you. Let’s conclude with a prayer.

 Father God, I ask you to guide me with your Holy Spirit. I thank you for your son Jesus. May I learn to receive from him the wisdom and insight I need for my life. Also, may times of refreshing come and change my perspectives and give me a new openness to the things of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

https://simoncockshutt.com