Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” John 7:37
Jesus tells us that he is the Living Water. He invites us to come, drink deeply, let our thirst be quenched. It is a continual process. Just as we can only go about three days without water, so being disconnected from the source of Living Water will dehydrate our souls. The Living Water needs to flow through us.
But what about those of us who aren’t disconnected from that Source, yet aren’t riding the river?
I do the “right” things. I read my Bible. I pray. I attend a life-giving church. I talk God-stuff with my Christian friends.
But I live upstream from a dam. And sometimes I compare my dam to the free-flowing river and wonder if I’m doing it wrong.
Have I taken all of that Living Water, meant to be free-flowing, and turned it into a lake for my own pleasure? A place where I can swim or water-ski or sit with some friends on a party-barge and have a glass of wine? Or is that another way God uses his Living Water?
I know that dams serve a purpose. They can be used to create energy, to provide recreational lakes, to conserve and control water flow.
Was the Living Water ever meant to be dammed? I don’t know. Any time you try to dam the Living Water it will still find a way to overflow the banks and spill out onto the land around it. It never goes to waste. Perhaps it’s reach is not as far as it could be? But perhaps it’s reach is deeper than it would otherwise be. Because that is what happens when a river is dammed. It creates a deep reservoir.
I’ll be honest. Evangelism scares me. Reaching out and telling others about my faith does not come easily. It is not one of my spiritual gifts. But that doesn’t mean I can use that as an excuse. Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. He doesn’t say: Hey you three over there, and you couple over there, and Sue and John and Amos, Go make disciples.” He is implying, nay, outright commanding all of us to do it.
How that looks will be different for each of us. For some people I have a feeling it looks a lot more like rushing rapids. God uses some to careen down the canyon, catching people’s attention, pulling them into the raft. Rescuing them. He’s not asking them to be comfortable. They have a mission and he’s using them in splashy and exciting ways.
But for the rest of us, maybe God uses the serene reservoir. By damming up a river, a deep pool is created. A pool that is calm, that creates a somewhat safe place where folks can relax and be in relationship with each other. A place where we can be refreshed.
Isn’t that also a form of evangelism? It may not feel like we are accomplishing much. Those of us who have built reservoirs will probably never save thousands of people at a big revival event, but it’s not us doing the saving anyway. It’s Jesus. It’s the water.
Living Water is not meant to be contained, rather to flow freely. But dams are also built to help control the flow of water, to help prevent an overwhelming flood downstream. By letting out as much as the surrounding landscape can handle, it brings life to the landscape.
So here is the dilemma. What is enough? I must be cautious of trying to selfishly keep the water to myself, to hoard it for my own future use, of creating a stagnant pool. Uff da. I need to be careful here. The reservoir is meant to be shared.
There is a very fine line between stopping the flow, and letting the flow be controlled. The control of water is actually managed by a different kind of structure called a floodgate. While I may choose to build a dam, the Holy Spirit is in charge of the floodgates. Maybe if I let the Spirit build the dam, instead of me, with floodgates installed, the reservoir becomes useful.
Another thing those reservoirs are used for is to fish. Jesus likes a good fishing story. After animal husbandry (sheep), fish are one of the more common metaphors used in the Gospels. Jesus hung out with fishermen. His BFFs were fishermen. Sometimes they had a good night fishing, and sometimes they came up with nothing. Until Jesus, a carpenter for Pete’s sake, tells them where to throw their nets, and then the catch is monumental.
Fish need moving water, or they need to move in the water, to survive. Even in a dammed up reservoir, the water moves. It’s when it doesn’t move at all that things die.
So water flows in. A dam is built, but with floodgates. A reservoir is formed. And the water keeps moving.
Some are told to get in the raft and ride the rapids. And some of us are told to ride the pontoon. The point is that the water is being used. That it is touching the lives of the people who are desperate for it. It laps up on the shores, and it sweeps things away. One is not better than the other. Just different.
Jesus promises us that if we come, if we drink deeply, he will turn us into conduits of Living Water. His life-giving force will flow through us and bring blessing and growth in the world around us. We need to leave him in charge of the floodgates, and allow the water to move.
