Well-Watered

The heat of early to mid-August has been horrible, sincerely atrocious. Summers in the South weren’t meant for the weak, but for the wise—like those who have learned to outmaneuver poodle hair derived from the suffocating humidity that we Southerners have been conditioned to reluctantly endure. If you’re among the select few who have solved that mystery—how to prevent hair from swelling three times its size in Alabama heat—please teach me your ways. I’m not even sure Scooby Doo has figured out a way to solve that mystery.

Point being—it’s hot down here right now. Breathtakingly, as in hard-to-breathe, hot down here. And yet, while on my walk this morning, I noticed my plants on the front porch thriving, standing beautifully green and vibrant despite the horrid heat. As soon as I saw them, they warranted my admiration. I love how they make my home more beautiful and inviting. They add a layer of softness and hospitality to my front porch that pleases me greatly.

With that said, almost immediately after admiring their beauty, I thought about the plants on my back porch, and a moment of sheer sadness and disappointment flooded my mind. I had forgotten to water them.

The plants on my back porch had received no water.
NO WATER.
And it got me thinking about water.
Born of water…
Living Water.
Water is LIFE.

The leaves of the plants on my back porch had already begun to brown. The plants themselves were withered, drooping, and sad, their life force visibly being drained. My rosemary looked dry and brittle. The green coloring had faded, and the soil looked dry and crumbly, the thirsty roots begging to be quenched.

I began to think about the necessity of water, how we as humans know how desperately we need it to sustain our lives. None of us can go without water for very long and still live. God wove into the very fabric of our existence a metaphor that speaks daily: we require water to live. The greater the heat, the more water we need.

When Jesus stepped onto the scene, He told the Samaritan woman that the water He gives would satisfy forever and become a spring of eternal life within a person (John 4:10–14).

I thought about the little plants, needing constant attention, a continual watering. Jesus contrasted ordinary water, which only satisfies temporarily, with the spiritual life He gives, which becomes like a spring inside of us. Later in John 7:39, John explains what Jesus meant when he writes, “But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive…”

Then, something about the plants on my front porch caught my attention. They had the American flag of freedom placed inside of them, and it made me think of when Jesus said, “And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life FREELY” (Revelation 22:17). It wasn’t a soldier who fought for that living sip of emancipated eternal life. It was Jesus, the conquering King, the one who laid down His life, so we could have Him, the source of true everlasting life. His Spirit in us provides that continuously refreshing drink of soul-deep satisfaction.

Will you come and drink?

The plants on the back porch, the ones without the flag of freedom, the ones dying without water…they bother Jesus, just like they bothered me. These are those who have quenched the waters, the resisting ones with withered leaves. They are dying and lifeless, starved for water yet existing without it. They are easy to break, without color and beauty, offering no hospitality or welcoming fragrance to the home God has given them in this world.

How long do you think you can make it without water?
How long do you think you can make it without the Spirit of the Living God?
How long have you sat without water?
How long have you been drinking from a reservoir of temporal fulfillment?

Some are still sipping from an intoxicating cup of fornication, which has caused a stupor of the soul.

The vessel must be emptied for the Good Wine to fill it.

Jesus is the Good Wine, the outpouring of His Spirit, the best of the wedding banquet saved till last, preserved until we are empty, till we have exhausted every futile effort of cheap drink this world has attempted to manufacture and sell to us. The cup our Lord has prepared overflows and never empties.

The very first Gardener, the greatest Gardener, told us that we are meant to be his “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3). You’re not meant to be a withered back porch plant. The seed of your tree is the Word of God. Will you let it take root? The Bible says people are like different kinds of soil receiving that seed. Is your soil dry? Do you need watering? Psalm 92:12–14 says, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon…” How can you grow and flourish without being planted by the rivers of water (Psalm 1:3)?

Did you start your day without sipping from the river? Is your Spirit dehydrated?

You are designed to be “God’s husbandry” (1 Corinthians 3:9), His beautiful cultivated field.

Do you need to be moved from a place of drought so that you may position yourself beside the River of Life?

Did the Lord not say He has transferred you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His dear son (Colossians 1:13) into a kingdom of brilliant light, where the sun does not scorch because the Light therein is Christ Himself (Revelation 21:23)?

I may not have figured out how to escape the suffocating summer heat, but one mystery has been solved. I know why my little freedom plants can withstand it.

They are well-watered.

“And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought… and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”
Isaiah 58:11

Misti Rains Kantor

Newer reflection: At the Gate with Blue

Earlier reflection: To the Fathers Still Shepherding Hearts