HOW’S YOUR PLUMBING?
“The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. (Isa. 12:2, 3)
Obtaining water in Bible times was time-consuming and tiring. It was time-consuming because a woman would be expected to walk to the nearest well and fill her vessel using a well bucket, and then carry the now full vessel back home, a chore she may have needed to repeat during the day. It was tiring because the woman would have needed to collect the water, possibly in the heat of the day, and then carry the heavy vessel back to her home.
How then do we square the injunction in the above verses that “with joy” we will draw water from the wells of salvation?
Firstly, note that in this context the Lord is not described as a single well of salvation, but many wells. What does this mean? A very plentiful supply of living water. A comparable modern-day picture might be the abundance of water in a reservoir, comprising many, many wells-worth of water.
Secondly, we are told it is with joy that we can draw from many wells (or a reservoir). Even if water were plentiful in Biblical times, it still needed to be collected. Now imagine modern plumbing in everyone’s house, all connected to the great reservoir of water. It would be a joy to collect this water because the user would save time, and avoid tiring collection journeys because the water would be constantly with them, in their dwelling, accessible at a turn of a tap.
Now consider Jesus’ words from John 7: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. (John 7:37 – 39)
In Christ Jesus, we do not have to go searching for water, the reservoir (rivers of living water) of the Spirit is with us and in us; we do not need to go searching elsewhere for that which refreshes and satisfies our spirits. This is why the Samaritan woman was eager to obtain this living water from Jesus (John 4:15).
In the last 6 years, the water supply at our house has been temporarily turned off by the water company 3 times. Whenever the water supply was interrupted, we contacted the water company and waited for the supply to be restored. We did not look for another water supply (Jerem. 2:13) because we knew there was a huge reservoir still available to us once the supply issue was resolved. How is your “living water supply” today? Is it full on, half pressure, or off altogether? Are our spiritual taps open to receive the deluge of the Spirit, or have we turned off the flow due to sin, indifference, or self-sufficiency and dug our own, second-rate well that fails to satisfy? How thirsty are you? Is your internal spiritual plumbing in working order?
