Are you like a tree planted by streams of living water? You
might ask what that is or just say so what. However, this is the dominant theme
of Psalm 1. This is the whole theme of the Bible. OK, tell me how you came up
with that? Do you know what living water is?
“And God said, “Let
the water under the sky be
gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so” (Genesis 1:9). And He called it
“very good.” In the beginning God
created heaven and earth and His Spirit hovered over the waters wherein He
began to create life “teeming in the waters.”
He watered the whole earth and made it vibrant. Then when man disobeyed
God used the same water to start over His creation with a flood. Yes, God has
control of all life and death. But He is good and brings life back again. God’s
Bible references water 617 times. Why? Because without it we and no created
thing can live. Wells became the center of civilization around which all
peoples dwelled. The biblical story unfolds around water which God controls to
save His people from slavery and death. When God’s people were dying of thirst
in the desert in the Exodus, God instructed Moses to strike the rock to bring
water. Never mind that Moses struck the rock three times, disobeying God,
that’s another story.
Throughout
Leviticus and Jewish teaching, water is for purifying and is a symbol of
holiness and righteousness. For King
David, water was life in his continuously near death experiences with Saul. He
wrote about it in his blessed psalms starting in the first psalm concerning the
“blessed man.” “He is like a tree planted in
streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose roots do not
wither” (Psalm 1:3). Although David may not have written it, we are
told the man is blessed because, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on His law he meditates day and night” (v.2). David speaks of God’s
magnificent creation in the oceans and our desire for its streams.
Perhaps
most coveted is David’s Shepherd Psalm 23. He sets the scene of God making us
to lie down in green pastures because we just do not do it willingly. Then he
says. “He guides me beside the still (quiet) waters, He restores (refreshes)
my soul” (Psalm 23:2). This scene of tranquility and healing is a
metaphor for abundant life that God has come through His Son to deliver us
into. But so often we won’t have any of it.
It is God’s heart to have relationship with us and bring us to the
waters of life.
Living water is God living and loving through you. Jesus
said, “but whoever drinks
the water I give them will never
thirst. Indeed, the water I give
them will become in them a spring of water
welling up to eternal life” (John 14:4). This He said to the Samaritan woman at the well
regarding the source of life. God Himself is the source of life and water is a
symbol of life. In our own sinful ways we are in a desert. But God wants to
bring us refuge and life, saying, “Each one will be like a shelter from the
wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty
land” (Isaiah 32:2). He will make the flowers grow and the rivers flow
in our valleys if we will trust in Him and lie down beside His quiet waters. Throughout
the gospels, water is the symbol of life and life eternal into which we may
become baptized through God’s Holy Spirit. It is the scene in the Jordan as
John baptizes Jesus into the beginning of His ministry on earth to bring us
life.
In
Revelation, the last book of the Bible, Jesus offers His water, “He
said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the
End. To the thirsty I will give
water without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Revelation 21:6). Come and drink!