Living Water

I had a great day at my writer's conference!

There's lots I want to share. But I only have time for one thought tonight.

I have known many of these ladies now for several years. We have prayed together, cried together, laughed together and encouraged one another.

During the course of the day, I noticed something was wrong with one of these dear women. She wanted to say that everything was ok. But I knew differently. I could see it in her eyes. Then once she started talking, the tears began to flow.

I was blessed to be able to speak truth into her heart and to pray with her. I pray that my words were led by the Spirit and not my own flesh. She did seem encouraged when she left.

This happens to me a lot.

My husband jokes that he can't leave me alone with a woman for 5 minutes without me making her cry. It's not that I try. The Holy Spirit gently shows me that something isn't quite right and I can't keep quiet. I have to ask.

I am always humbled that the Lord would use me to bring encouragement to a fellow sister in Christ. Encouraging other women is a great passion in my life.

But as I walked away today, I got another message from the Lord.

He reminded me that I can only pour out to others what I have received first. Furthermore, I can only receive when I take the time to drink from the Master's Cup myself. There isn't any other way. There is only One Source of Living Water.

Sadly I haven't been making time with my Heavenly Father a priority lately. Oh, I spend time in the Bible everyday and I say a quick prayer. But it hasn't been intimate time where I am really drinking from His cup. It's been a quick sip, not a deep, thirst quenching drink.

In John 7:37-38, Jesus says "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

People around us need the Spirit in us. They need us to speak words of affirmation. They need us to pray with them. But we can't do this if we are not drinking from the Living Water.

So today, I encourage each of us to make a renewed commitment to spend quality time in prayer and in God's Word. Let's not just rush through our quiet time in order to start tackling our long to-do list. Instead let's make it a real priority in our lives, even if that we means we have to spend less time blogging or watching television or even cleaning house (although I know that last one is not too difficult ;).

We need this and so do the people around us. We never know when there just might be a dear sister thirsty for a drink of Living Water.

Take care my friends!

Thanks for always sticking around to read my rambling thoughts!

Just keepin' it real,