Handling Water Is Not Drinking It

"Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again." (John 4:14)

There is a story of two boys who swam in a pool for four hours and drank nothing, and nearly collapsed on the way home. The longer you sit with it, the less it sounds like a story about two boys and the more it sounds like the life of a great many people who work near holy things. You can be surrounded by it, that is the terrible part, and still go home dry. A person can handle Scripture all week, pray out loud constantly, be in the room every single time somebody meets God, and end up parched every night for years.

Because handling water is not drinking it. And no one warns you, and no alarm sounds, and you can travel a remarkable distance on the fumes of a call you received a decade ago. Until you cannot. And then you find yourself drinking from a hose in the mud somewhere, because you were desperate and it was the closest thing and you had let it get that bad.

No one can drink for you, and no lecture will make you thirsty on cue. So here is only a question, and you can answer it later, alone. When was the last time it was for you? Not for the sermon, not for the meeting, not for the person you were about to go help. For you. If you cannot remember, that is not a small thing to note and move past. That is the whole warning, and there is still a well, and it has your name on it too.