I was watching a new Disney release ‘Raya And The Last Dragon’ a few days back with my children and it was a sweet movie. Perfect for a rainy evening. The movie, as with every movie had the usual battle between good and bad. The bad got worse when people distrusted each other and split from each other. The good triumphed as long as there was water in and around the vicinity. Yes, you heard it right - water was the force that kept a wicked life-sucking destructive force at bay. When this dark ugly and scary looking thing came at people they either shined the light from a handheld crystal at it or they got into a water source and were safe.
As I watched the story evolve it reiterated everything we as a church have been learning together through the sermon series ‘Planted’. Remember that passage from Jeremiah 17 which talks of the person who trusts in God being like a tree planted by streams of water? We saw how Jesus said that he was the living water and that whoever came to him would never thirst again.
I have been a born again believer from the age of 12, baptised at 18, but it's only from age 24 that I understood what it meant to actually follow Jesus. If I have to make an analysis of what my journey as a Christian has looked like, I can safely say that in the seasons of my distancing myself from God and His word, that I ran on empty. I had nothing to give back to God, myself or others. I just existed, barely got by.
In seasons when I soaked myself in God’s word and presence though - I soared in every situation that I encountered good or bad. My attitude was hopeful and I was able to thrive even in the barren places of life.
Do you see the thread here?
My connection to Jesus changed everything.
He was the same - always with me (thank God for that) but based on my need for Him I either found myself soaking myself in the living waters or staying high and dry far from Him. The choice was mine.
I ask you as you read this to look at your journey so far in a closer way.
Have you been dipping your feet in the living waters as and when you needed him or have you just jumped in?
Did you have a time when you were soaked in Him and now it's just a distant memory?
The ideal situation is for you and I to stay in that water and to allow it to clean us, protect us and nourish us.
If you have been struggling with one spiritual attack after the other with no victory in sight it may be that the water you need is nowhere in sight because you somehow wandered off track. Can you stop reading right now and go to the source of everything.
Read the word of God - start talking to God like you would a friend - stay quiet so you can hear him speak back to you - and go out there and slay those life-sucking, demoralising demons out there!
Live your life to its fullest capacity and potential as God desires you to!
"Jesus says, "I want you to follow me so fully, so intensely, so enduringly that all other attachments in your life look weak by comparison""
Timothy Keller
Contributed by Christine Jayakaran