Living water

Being from Minnesota, I understand the importance of having running water in the wintertime. In "Boyhood and Beyond," author Bob Schultz relates how living water is important in one's spiritual life:

At 2:30 one morning I awoke. The water had stopped! Without hesitation I jumped out of bed. Throwing on warm clothes, I went out into the night. First, I crawled under the trailer and squeezed all the hoses checking for a hard spot that would indicate a frozen blockage. The hoses seemed okay. Then I ran two hundred yards down the hill to the pump house looking for trouble there.

Unable to find any frozen pipes I ran back up to the trailer for a heater. . .down to the pump house to plug it in. . .up to the trailer for a lamp to put by the hoses. . .down to the pump to check for any progress.

I raced back and forth knowing that the longer it took to find the frozen block, the colder all the lines would become.

On one trip up the road I stopped my busyness and looked up into the sky. The stars were brilliant. The night was so cold and calm that I could hear my heart beat. In the stillness God spoke to my spirit:

'When your water lines begin to freeze, you jump out of bed immediately, even in the middle of the night. It is important for you to have drinking water. When the Living Water in your heart begins to freeze, are you that quick to get up and attend to the trouble?'

I had been busy lately. The cares of the world were gradually freezing the water of my heart. Slowly, one degree at a time, I was growing cold toward God and wasn't doing anything about it. I knew the water was slowing, but spiritually I continued to lie in bed. On that freezing night, halfway between the trailer and the pump house, His presence melted my heart, one degree at a time. He showed me again the purpose of life, reminded me of His love, and drew me to His warm side.

Let God in to your heart. Open yourself up to Him. Let down your walls.

Confess your mistakes

In "Boyhood and Beyond," author Bob Schultz recounts how a lesson that he learned as a teenager -- the easy way out of trouble is to confess your mistakes -- is still very relevant as an adult.

Twenty-five years later I stood in a huge bathtub gasping for breath. I couldn't believe what I had just done. I was framing on a new house and needed to install some blocking on the wall behind a four-foot-wide fiberglass tub. Stepping into it to reach the blocks, I accidentally dropped the air nailer I carried. It misfired and shot a three-and-a-half-inch nail through the bottom of the tub!

I felt sick. The same wrong thoughts that I faced years before came into my head.

'Don't tell anyone! Hide it. No one will know that you did it.' Does it surprise you that an older man would be tempted to hide his mistake? Men, at every age, want to hide their faults, but if we do hide them we are fools.

God's Spirit spoke loudly to my heart, 'You can't do that. You must tell the truth the first chance you get. The general contractor comes back in a couple of hours -- tell him.'

When the contractor did return, I pushed aside my strong desire to hide. Walking quickly to him, I told him my mistake. Now it was his turn to feel sick. He called the plumber, who called the manufacturer. Within minutes, the contractor came to me smiling. He announced, 'The tub company has a warranty policy on all of its tubs. Any construction damage they'll fix without charge.'

Schultz goes on to repeat that the easy way out of trouble is to confess your mistakes.

A moose on a wilderness adventure

Being in God's wild outdoors can create some interesting experiences. John Eldredge recounts one on pp. 25-26 of his book Beautiful Outlaw:

I'm remembering a story from last summer. My sons and I were on the first leg of a five-day backpacking trip into a wilderness area we'd never visited before. We'd been on the trail only forty-five minutes or so, but already I am bringing up the rear (I am the old goat now). I'm looking around, taking in the sights, when I notice moose sign on the trail -- droppings, tracks. Not fresh, but still, it didn't even cross my mind that we might be in moose country. I love moose. Seeing one is a celebration for me. With a hesitant hopefulness, I prayed, 'Wow, Jesus. . .it would be awesome if we could see a moose sometime during this trip!' I'm thinking several days from now, once we're into the back country, and maybe then only from a mile away. Jesus' immediate reply was deadpan: You will. Count one thousand one. . .one thousand two. . .one thousand bam. There in front of us, sixty yards away, is a moose grazing in the meadow.

God's timing could not have been more exquisite. Jesus' timing sure is perfect, isn't it? He wants good experiences for us.