JESUS - THE WATER OF LIFE 

One night as I was in the midst of the rehearsal season for a Living Parables play I wrote and was directing, I was ready to quit.  The adult Christian actors were acting like prima donnas…complaining over not getting the parts they wanted, threatening to walk out if technical things were not done their way, refusing to wear the costumes provided, etc.  I was fed up. I had even had a nightmare that I was back running a Day Nursery and herding the children from room to room away from explosions. 

That night after everyone had left, I sat at the piano, put my head down, closed my eyes, and said, “Lord, I have had it.  I want out of the ministry. I can’t handle people.  I don’t want to be in charge. Can’t I just serve under someone else?” 

Suddenly in my mind, I saw a picture of myself lying on a raft and floating down a river.  I had no idea where I was going but Jesus was standing behind me and He could see ahead. I knew that the current in the river that was taking me where He wanted me to go was His faith and all I needed to do was enter into the rest and trust Him.

Immediately a verse came to mind, “The life I live now in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  I knew the verse was in Galatians (2:20) but thought it said “I live by faith in the Son of God”.  Some other versions do say that but the Bible on the piano there was the King James Version and it read literally, “I live by the faith OF the Son of God!”  Halleluia!   

Whenever things get tough even now twenty five years later, that scene flashes into my mind and I lie back on the raft of His Love and trust His faith to be the substance of the things He hopes for…for me and the rest of His Body.

      Another time I was deep in prayer and suddenly heard a powerful roaring like water.  Then in my mind I saw a waterfall and the face of Jesus imposed on that waterfall.  I heard the words, “Come to the mouth of the Living Waters and drink.” 

     When the experience was over, doubt immediately came to my mind.  “I must have made that up.  If that had been God He would have said ‘source’ of Living Waters”.  And then I wondered what the mouth of a river meant anyway; I had heard the expression but didn’t know what it meant.  I looked it up in the dictionary and found this, “the place where the river’s waters pour into other streams.” 

     Jesus IS the place where Living Water is poured into other streams…and out of our bellies shall flow those rivers of Living Water.(John 7:38)     Halleluia again!      

COME AND DRINK!      

Amy Barkman 8/06

Amy is pastor of Mortonsville United Methodist Church in Mortonsville, Ky