The Deal

And they shall be My people, and I will be their God. — Jeremiah 32:38 (ESV)

We once met a retired missionary who, with his wife, was serving as an interim pastor at a church in Oklahoma. He talked amusingly about living out on "the cutting edge". His wife had driven their questionable car several hundred miles across Texas to be with their daughter as she gave birth. The trip was made on worn tires. His wife arrived back home, parked the car in the driveway, and started carrying her luggage into the house. By the time she returned for the next load all four tires had gone flat. I perhaps raised my eyebrows, but there was really no reason for me to disbelieve it. I was looking at their car. I wouldn't start out for my front gate in it these days. He told the story both for the humor of it and as a way to acknowledge their faith that they were God's people, and He was their God.

By making this profound and simple statement, God is calling upon us to call upon Him. There is reciprocity between God and those who belong to Him. The power of prayer lies not in convincing God to do something for us but in finding the harmony that must exist between us. When we find the point at which we connect with Him — the mutual purpose that we have, our single, two-sided will, we will find prayers answered almost automatically. This is obvious in the life of Christ. Jesus knew, as He said in John 8:14, where He came from and where He was going. He knew that His life was being lived in harmony with the Father.

Our part of the relationship is to first receive. It is exceedingly difficult to give away what one does not possess. As far as I know, only the federal government is able to that on a regular basis. The rest of us must have something in order to share it. What we are to receive is God Himself. As He pours His Spirit into us, out of our innermost being will flow — to others, and even back to our Father, streams of living water (John 7:38).

I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy (Psalm 116:1). Our call and God's response is not simply about the answer but the hearing. There are times when I desperately need an answer — at least, there used to be. As the years have passed, my life and my circumstances seem much less important than I once thought them. Most of the time now, I like to think that I am content with God's presence, with the world-shattering fact that He will hear me personally, that He knows and understands the hauntings of my past and the often distorted reflections of my present. People need to be heard. Why else do we log our thoughts in the cyberfog? But to be heard by the Creator, to know that the Infinite Unknowable knows and cares enables us to catch a glimpse of life's meaning that breaks free of the endless ring of days, demands, and deeds.

We are God's people. He hears us, knows our thoughts toward Him, walks with us, and goes before us. He is our God.

Love You Long Time

As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? – Psalm 42:1-2

For the vast majority of man’s time on earth, the main concern must have been lunch. At least that’s what Maslow’s hierarchy of needs postulates. The physiological needs, such as air, water, and food, form the base of a typical pyramid. The base includes all the “animal” aspects of life like sleep and sex. As best I can figure, sex is the only thing in the base that we can live without for very long. Of course, if you assume that the reason for animal life – including humans – is reproduction of selfish genes, then those that do not have sex to pass along their DNA do not live as long as those who do.

Some critics of Maslow’s pyramid argue that the hierarchical structure is a false. While all the listed needs may be more or less legitimate, the idea that sleep is more basic, somehow, than friendship or security is misleading. In real life, most of us have given up a lower level need for a higher level need. Morality is on the capstone of Maslow’s pyramid, implying that morality only becomes important when all the lower level needs are met. In a coherent, sensible society, the satisfaction of lower level needs is controlled by morality. A desperately hungry man may violate his morals to eat, but he knows he is doing something extreme.

God is trying to make us whole, to put us back together, to defragment us. If we are only a body, then we are mainly concerned with satisfying animal needs. If we recognize that we have a soul, then our needs change to emotional and relational objects. At the innermost is the spirit man who recognizes that the most intense hunger and thirst we can experience physically are but a mirage compared to that which gives us true satisfaction in life -- that gives us life.

For the person who seeks after God, hierarchies become meaningless. Needs are more like ripples in a pool, concentric circles leading us back to the point of origin, created by our entrance into material existence. The only thing that matters is His presence in our lives, His voice speaking to our spirit, His life flowing through us and out of us.

“… out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water …”

Let It Flow

For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water. – Jeremiah 2:13

A cistern is not a bad way to store water if it is properly constructed. It should be covered, not open and exposed. There is a flow in but there should be no independent flow out. It is fairly easy to get water out of a cistern either by drawing or pumping as the reservoir is just below the surface. There are, though, negatives. The inflow is dependent on external sources. The cistern cannot replenish itself. If the sealed reservoir cracks, it is best to let the cistern go completely dry before attempting to repair it. After that, one must wait on the rains for the needed refilling and restoration. We can get by with cisterns, but wells are better, and bubbling springs are better still.

A person is free to work hard and create a deep, dark hole in which to store a hidden reserve of that which makes life possible. He can build a clever means of channeling the general grace of God, as rains that fall on just and unjust alike, into that occult void. He can carefully hoard and preserve his precious store. The problems come with the seasons as the earth shifts and settles, freezes and thaws. The reservoir is prone to leaking under the best of conditions. Even more troublesome, what is one to do in case of a prolonged drought? The wisest of humankind have struggled for as long as we have been human to build better collection and storage systems. Some of them are very effective and nearly foolproof.

Still, anyone who has ever drunk from a cistern knows that the water tastes like, well, cistern water. It will quench the immediate thirst, but it is often stale. Even the very best systems are still limited. The bottom can always be found, and it is not wise to draw too much. A man might be able to share with his family and a neighbor or two, but he can’t provide for the whole community or water everyone’s livestock or irrigate a field.

There is one source of spiritual water that is unlimited. Once we are connected with Christ in faith, we have access to life that is fresh, pure, and everlasting. At the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, there was a tradition on the last day of the festival that great jars of water would be poured out on the steps of the Temple so that the water would flow down in a rush as if a spring had suddenly opened. Ezekiel prophesied about it (Ezekiel 47) telling of a stream that flowed from under the threshold becoming a mighty river. In John chapter seven, we are told of Jesus attending the Feast and being moved by the Spirit to cry out: The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.

In Christ, our thirst is not merely slacked. Through Him, we are meant to be a source of this living water, springs in the desert, to bring life to all that is around us. There is no hiding and protecting this water under a cover to cautiously pump out a cupful at a time. There is no scarcity. Our source is not some cracked leaking, stagnant pool. This is the spring that watered Eden. This is the headwater of all the rivers of earth. It will never run dry. It lives because it flows ever outward.