Ice Cold Water

Ice Cold Water

It doesn’t take a lot to make us thirsty. On any given day we get thirsty because our body is telling us that we need to re-hydrate. Oddly enough we usually go for a beverage that does little or no good for hydration and we know that but the urge to drink that cold coca cola is bursting forth in our minds. Yes! So refreshing!

It wasn’t all that long ago when we loaded up our ice chest with everything but water. Why? Because it was packaged that way and it was so easy…..just buy your favorite drinks in a bottle or can and ice down. Water wasn’t so much available in these convenient forms, it was FREE right out of the tap right?

A classic image I have in my memory is those times when we would be at Mama and Papa’s sitting outside under the shade tree on a hot day. My grandmother would bring out these clear, glass canning jars with ice cold water. So cold there would be beads of water running down the sides. I can hear the ice cubes bouncing against the side of the jar as she brought them over to where we sat. Then I can remember my dad and Papa taking one of those quart jars and downing it in what seemed like a single gulp. Now that was thirst quenching!

Another image I have is my grandmother, Mama, asking just about anyone in the vicinity if they’d like a drink. That was just her way! She’d even ask a customer she didn’t know at their shop next door to their house if they wanted an ice cold “glass” of water. Common hospitality? Maybe but on a hot day you didn’t usually have someone hesitate. The answer was quick and to the point….SURE, if you don’t mind!

I miss those simpler days when we felt comfortable asking a stranger if they’d like a drink. Now, we may offer them a bottle of water but it’s not the same. It was more personal and intimate when we offered someone a drink in a glass fruit jar. The same can be true for the living water that abides in us. Have you received that living water today? Are you thirsty for more of what life has to offer than the impersonal idea that we are all just derivatives of a process of evolution? Do you seemingly drift thru this life without a purpose or someone or something to worship? Jesus said that if anyone “thirst” he would give them living water that truly satisfies. Not superficially but from the “inside out” in a way that hydrates the inner man and overflows onto others. That’s the kind of thirst quenching water I want in my life. How about you?