A Lot Of Rain But No Water

by Rev. James Wong

We have record high downpour throughout the Chinese New Year and this has wreaked havoc in many parts of Sandakan. There were flooding, land slides and broken pipes. This resulted in many homes without water. Some of the badly affected areas are Kam Jai Yen and along Trig Hill where our church is.

There has been no water in the office and the pastors’ apartments for more than a week. Our staffs visit the nearby hotels to ease themselves and in the evening, for me and my wife, it was a matter of calling up members to have our showers in their homes plus unexpected dinner! Isn’t it funny that we have so much rain yet our faucets are running dry? I believe most of us take water for granted. We seldom realize the importance of water until we lose it.

There is a very important figurative use of water in the bible, that is, the water of life. There were two places in the New Testament that Jesus spoke about the water of life. To the woman at the well Jesus said: “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14 (NIV). Water satisfies our thirst and the water that Jesus gives will satisfy the deepest thirst of our soul. For those who drink this water they will have a spring of water welling up to eternal life. What is this water that Jesus is referring to?

Jesus explained it in another place. "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." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. John 7:37-39 (NIV).

To drink this water is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit will bring to us a new life that will last eternally. The goodness of it can be described as ‘spring of living water.’ Although this is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit we need to empty ourselves and be “filled with the Spirit” as Ephesians 5:15 says. Let us go through the week with gratitude knowing that we have the water of life in spite of the inconveniences of not having water in our faucets. Let us share with others this water of life that is found in Christ.