Wilting Flowers & Living Water

Imagine walking into a store and there in front of you is a huge bouquet of fresh flowers.

The colors are vibrant. Reds. Golds. Greens. Blues. Pinks. Purples.

They smell fresh. Like springtime in the south.

They bring an instant smile to your face. A balm to a weary soul.  A bright spot in a day that was filled with darkness ... gloom ... despair.  A sign of hope.

You purchase them and take them home. But in the busyness of life, they lay forgotten on the kitchen table.  Now they are wilting. The colors are fading. The smell is not so pleasant.  Hope has faded along with the flowers.

In a seemingly futile effort, you put them in a vase of water.  "Why bother," you wonder. "They are beyond help now. It was a waste of money and effort to get them."  And you leave.

When you return you are welcomed with a vase filled with vibrant colors and fresh smells.  All you did was put them in a vase of water. Hope restored.

God does that with us. When we are wilting. Burdened by our past, the world, worries. When we spiritually stink and the only colors we see are shades of gray, God has water for us.

If we allow God to fill us with his living water, it is never a futile effort. There are times when we see no immediate results but if we come back later, we can see what happened. We need his vital gift to be vibrant, to grow, to thrive.  We can't survive without it.