Tag: Christianity

Leading a Horse to Water…Living Water

I wonder if you have you ever heard that old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”  I’ve heard it many, many times over the years and said it a few times as well.  I have never, however, found myself in circumstances that better fit that familiar saying than I find myself in right now.

Life has been less than fun lately.  This less-than-fun stage started because I tried to help someone.  I tried very hard to show someone something it took me a long time to learn.  I had hoped she could learn it much quicker than I did, at a much younger age than I did and that it could help her to be the person she really wanted to be.  I wanted her to see that she didn’t have to let where she came from dictate who she had to be.  She could be a wonderful person, an awesome mother and a wife any man would love to have if she would just step away from her past and step fully into her present…but she wouldn’t do it.  She chose to give her present life to her past life, and she hurt herself and so many others around her when she made that choice that most of those she hurt have walked away from her forever.  Much like the horse in the old saying, I tried so hard to get her to see the water I had led her to, but I couldn’t make her drink.  She didn’t want the water when it was in plain sight.  She would rather continue drinking from the same old puddle that has already proven it will not sustain her. 

I will never truly understand how a person could prefer to slurp water from a muddy puddle than to drink from cold, clear, purified water that is offered to them…especially when the offer has no strings attached.  But maybe I do understand because as I typed that last sentence, I realized I do the same thing all the time.  Jesus has offered us His living water; and, though I have accepted His gift to quench my eternal thirst, I still return every so often to that muddy water and take a little sip.  Sometimes I don’t realize I am kneeling in the mud until after that first sip; but sometimes I know exactly where I am going to end up as I am heading to that puddle, yet I make the conscious decision that I will just stick my fingers in the water and play in the mud a little but never really take a sip.  I know this plan never really works, but I lie to myself and ignore my conscience and get a little muddy anyway.

I am like the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well in the book of John, chapter 4, beginning in verse 7.  I have made more bad choices than I want to allow myself to remember; but, like the woman at the well, He didn’t care how much muddy water I had trudged through.  He shared His eternal living water with me without reservation. 

“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

“The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’ 

“‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and his herds?’

“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ 

“The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

I have drank from Jesus living water.  He has forever quenched that eternal thirst in me, but every once in a while I decide to stray off His path and find myself playing in the mud that gets deeper with every step.  Why do I do it?  I don’t know.  I’d like to say that the devil made me do it, but I know better than to listen to that deceiver.  He never makes me play in the mud.  He just makes it look a little less muddy than it really is.  Every time, I can only blame myself and then refocus my eyes back on Jesus and the living water He led me to.

“John 4:7-15.” NIV Archaeological Study Bible: An Illustrated Walk through Biblical History and Culture: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005. N. pag. Print.

Tired of Praying? Me, too.

Do you ever get tired from the emotional strain of praying for the lost people whom you love?  I mean the kind of tired you feel after praying for years only to see that nothing ever seems to change in that person.  You’ve tried to be a good influence.  You’ve tried to help them in any way you can.  You’ve tried talking openly to them about faith, and you were repaid with accusations that you were judging them.  You’ve tried subtly trying to show them faith by living it as best you can in a terribly fallen world, and you were called a hypocrite with all of your flaws and failures thrown in your face.  You stepped back from the situation and tried to be just a friend on the outside while you prayed fervently on the inside and were accused of not being a good friend or family member because you weren’t doing enough.  You tried all of this but nothing ever changed.  It may even seem like the situation has become worse.  I’ve been that kind of tired.  It seems like I’ve spent the last few years that kind of tired.  As tiring and emotionally draining as this seemingly-fruitless praying can be, we can’t give up.  Praying for the lost is not a simple choice we make.  It is just one battle in a Spiritual war going on all around us every day.

“Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.  They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News.  They don’t understand about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God (2 Corinthians 4:4 The Bible, New Living Translation).”  Satan first deceived himself; and ever since he first fell, he has been the deceiver to all.  There is no redemption for him, and he is determined to take as many of us with him as he can in the final Judgement.  If you are the kind of tired I am, then you, like me, know we have been given a way to escape Judgement.  John 3:16 is pretty recognizable, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life,” but John doesn’t stop there with the Good News.  “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.  There is no judgement against anyone who believes in him.  But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.  And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.  All who do evil and hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.  But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants (John 3:17-21 The Bible, New Living Translation).”  That very last sentence says so much.  We are not to live up to the reputation that Christianity has earned for itself throughout the years.  We are to be real Christians, believers who truly try to follow Christ’s teaching, and we are to express His love to the world so that the world will see and feel His love for all people.  This includes those people who have already exhausted us and led us to nearly give up on them.

So if we can’t give up on our loved ones and we can’t really talk openly to them because they get angry, what are we left with?  We pray and we live the best we can, and we continue to do these things until we can’t do them any more.  We learn to love them like Christ loved them.  We remember that He never stopped loving them.  We never give up.  We remember, “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth.  They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.  It is the same with my word.  I send it out, and it always produces fruit.  It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it (Isaiah 55:11-12 The Bible, New Living Translation).”   God will use your words, actions and prayers to plant seeds.

I recently heard a story about a man who was walking down George Street in Sydney, Australia when a man stepped from a doorway and handed him a tract.  That tract eventually let him to a relationship with Christ and he eventually became a preacher.  This preacher was later counseling a woman and asked where she heard about salvation.  She told him she had recently been walking on George Street in Sydney, Australia when a man stepped out of a doorway and gave her a tract.  Some time later, the preacher was talking to another person about where he learned about Christ.  He also mentioned the man on George Street.  After hearing the same story numerous times at conventions and meeting all over the world, the man decided to look up this man who had planted so many seeds on George Street.  When he told the man about the many people he had talked to who claimed their first step toward salvation was when he gave them a tract, the man broke down in tears.  This man had given out tracts for years on George Street and never knew anyone had ever been saved because of the seeds he planted.  It has been estimated that over 100,000 people were saved because this man never gave up.  He continued to do what God wanted him to as long as he was physically capable of doing it even though he never knew he had made a difference.

Don’t give up on your loved ones.  Keep praying.  God’s words will not return to Him without producing fruit.