February 2020
The sandcastles have been precisely placed with a flag
carefully inserted in each, the city walls have been built up and the streets
decorated with shells and seaweed. Now
it’s time for the moat to be filled with seawater – but now it’s also that sad time
when children discover that sand doesn’t hold water and the moat will never be
full.
Navvies knew that they often needed to line a newly-dug
canal with clay if it were to hold water.
Farmers knew that if there were no natural ponds on their land they
could dig one as long as they could make it water-tight. But you wouldn’t expect them to go to all that
trouble if there was already a reliable bubbling stream within a stone’s
throw. Why put all that effort into building
something that’s unnecessary and inferior?
Jeremiah expresses the Lord’s surprise and sadness at the
wasted and foolish effort of Old Testament Israel in rejecting the God who was
everything to them: "My people
have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and
have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
When your life feels like the dried and cracked bed of a
pond that never holds any refreshing water it’s long past time to ask yourself whether
you have been ignoring a bubbling stream that flows nearby. Here is Jesus’ answer to a woman who he met
by a well and whose whole life seemed to be a series of painful relationships
that had turned sour: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you
for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)
Later this month we are teaming up with local churches and
students and staff from Capernwray Hall to offer a week of events that may help
you to discover, or rediscover, the life-giving water that Jesus Christ offers
to all. I do hope that you will join
us. Further details are at
www.burtonandholmechurches.org
Sincerely
Graham Burrows
