The first step to drawing water from the wells of salvation (Is 12:3) is to admit that we are thirsty. Getting water from a well wasn’t an easy task, so if you weren’t thirsty, you just wouldn’t bother. So often, we find it hard to admit to spiritual thirst. Pride makes us unwilling to admit to anyone that we are not excited by God anymore or don’t feel His presence as closely as we used to. We don’t want to appear too fanatical about God. We are so used to ‘making do’ with religion that we forget God wants us to be in an intimate relationship with Him.

The psalmists were not afraid to admit their thirst for God.

‘You, God, are my God,
    earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
    my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
    where there is no water.’ (Ps 63:1)

‘As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?’ (Ps 42:1-2)

‘I thirst for you like a parched land.’ (Ps 143:6)

Jesus said, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.’ (Jn 7:37) We will only drink and have our thirst quenched if we admit we are thirsty and come to Jesus.

In our new series tonight (‘The Wells of Salvation’), we looked at Isaiah 12:3 which tells us ‘with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’ Joy is promised to us by Jesus (see John 15:11) and is the source of strength in God (Neh 8:10), but so often, we struggle because we don’t like to admit our spiritual thirst and we don’t like to admit that God’s ways are the only ways we can know true and lasting satisfaction. Jeremiah pinpointed the problem when he prophesied, ‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’ (Jer 2:13)

God is the source of living water (Jer 17:13). Water is essential to life, but the question remains whether we draw water from wells or from cisterns. In Israel at the time Isaiah and Jeremiah were writing, there were four main sources of water for settlements. There was obviously fresh surface water (the Sea of Galilee, for example) and there were springs and wells as well as cisterns which were used to collect rain so that the water could be used in dry periods. Springs and wells tap into the same source of water, but springs are natural, and wells are dug by people from the surface. Rain could be collected in cisterns, which were at that time large holes dug into the ground, usually in bedrock, but they differed from wells in that they could only hold captured rainwater. They were, in effect, like a storage tank, a bit like a reservoir. A well actually tapped into an underground water source; it had access to living water.[1]

We need to be drawing water from a well of water which has access to life-giving rivers instead of simply dipping into a storage container which can easily leak and which has finite resources. Eventually, we will reach the end of our resources, the end of the satisfaction that worldly things can bring. That may well take a long time: there is much pleasure to be found in the world and we can live for many years in contentment, thinking we have found all we need in family, friends, homes, material possessions, successful careers and so on. But one day we will find that even if we have everything we have always believed was vital to a successful life, we feel lifeless and restless. The cistern will have run dry.

It’s tempting at this point to simply dig another cistern: to find another job, to swap partners, to buy more stuff, to move house. But God wants us to learn that satisfaction ultimately comes from Him and not from these other things. There is an abundance in God which satisfies all our needs and all our desires (see Ps 87:7, Song of Songs 4:15) There is no problem with supply; the wells of salvation will never run dry. We simply need, as Casting Crowns sing, to come to the well. (‘The Well’, Casting Crowns)

[1] http://funjoelsisrael.com/2010/09/what-is-a-cistern/

We had a belated birthday to celebrate tonight.

‘Blind Date’ was a UK TV series hosted by Cilla Black which aimed to match up couples without them actually seeing each other. It’s much harder to do anything without the benefit of sight, and the story of the healing of a blind man (Mark 8:22-26) raises some interesting questions.

This healing took place in Bethsaida, which was near to Jesus’s home town of Nazarath. He was essentially in home territory – was that a help or a hindrance?! This incident took place just after the feeding of the four thousand, when Jesus was clearly moving in the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet He took this man by the hand and led him out of the town before spitting on him and rubbnig his eyes! His methods were certainly not those recommended by any optician and this miracle is unusual in that the man could not see clearly straightaway, saying initially he could only see men walking like trees. (Mk 8:24) Full sight was restored only when Jesus laid hands on him again. (Mk 8:25)

We may have many questions about why this healing did not take place immediately. Was it due to a lack of faith? Was Jesus simply having an ‘off day’? The more plausible explanation is that Jesus was reminding us that even when there is faith, the power of God is present and we are in the right place, sometimes there are delays. Miracles occur through God’s power and in God’s time. We may well need to persevere in prayer before we see the miracles we long to see.

Sometimes, blindness is spiritual and not physical. We may well be seeking God for guidance and direction and feel that He is strangely silent. At such times, we need to learn the lessons of perseverance. (Luke 18:1) Restoration comes, but in God’s timing and in God’s way.

Today’s Summer Fun day at GPCC was another great success, with fine weather and lots of activities to do.

Setting up at the start:

Great food again!

Thanks to Karen Dunn, who did a great job teaching us how to make clay pots and animals:

We had fun decorating maps of Yorkshire with buttons, ready to display at the arts’ festival:

There were other activities, such as glass painting and colouring:

Thanks to all who helped with the event and who attended. Next week is at St Helen’s Church Hall on Tuesday 21st August, with a Superheroes theme.

A desert is a huge place filled with sand. Unlike the variety of a normal landscape, with hills, valleys, fields and rivers, a desert can seem monotonous, tedious and life-threatening (since water is a luxury in such landscapes, but a necessity for life.)

Trudging through the desert is a hazardous task, but part of the hazard lies in our tendency to see only with natural eyes, and to become discouraged by what we can see. We need to see beyond the sand.

Our present circumstances may well feel like we are trudging through a desert. We may feel we’re in a dry and barren land, where day after day there is no respite from the hot, blistering sand and no prospect of a thirst-quenching oasis.

But no desert lasts forever. No drought goes on without end.

God is faithful and will not test us beyond what we can bear. (1 Cor 10:13) He gives us more grace. (James 4:6)

See beyond the sand. Times of refreshing will come from the Lord.