By John Townend, General Director of The Faith Mission
Photo iStockphoto
When I was a young teenager, one summer morning I set off with a petrol can in hand and cycled three miles to the nearest garage. There I paid the carefully saved six shillings and tuppence (31p!) for a gallon of petrol, strapped the full can to the back of my bike and made the return journey. I was impatient to have some fun on the old motorcycle we used in the field behind our home. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that there was a small hole in the bottom of the can and on arriving home was terribly disappointed to find that most of the fuel had seeped away.
Leaking Vessels
It is my experience that we tend to be a little bit like that in our every-day walk with God. It is not that we deliberately reject God’s Word, but we often neglect to put it into action in our lives and over a period of time the blessing and benefit which God intended us to enjoy simply seep away. I understand that Hebrews 2:1 can be accurately translated:
“Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest over a period of time we should let them ebb away.”
The pressures of every-day life take their toll upon us. If we fail to keep close to God, hide his Word in our hearts and daily seek the fresh anointing of his Holy Spirit upon our lives, we soon find that we are “running on empty”. Instead of knowing “the peace, the joy, the thrill of walking in his will” we become bowed down with care or weary in well-doing; we fail to be the blessing that he intends us to be.
Blocked Channels
Of course, sometimes the cause of our emptiness is not leakage but blockage. Over thirty years ago, when I was a student at the Bible College, I was deeply challenged while reading the book by S D Gordon entitled Quiet Talks on Power. Using the illustration of a conduit channelling mighty torrents of water from the reservoir to a mill or power station below, he spoke of our lives as being channels through which the Holy Spirit seeks to flow in power, to touch the lives of those around about us. If the conduit is blocked by debris, the water soon ceases to flow and the turbines fail to turn. Likewise, if our lives are tainted with the debris of unforgiven sin, disobedience or an unyielded will, the channel is blocked and the Holy Spirit cannot flow in power and blessing through our lives. That afternoon I quietly bowed to yield my life afresh to God and ask him to forgive me for the blockages that I knew had been preventing the Holy Spirit from flowing through me.
Rivers of Living Water
It is tragic that our natural tendency is to be leaking vessels and blocked channels, when God actually intends that we be rivers of living water to the thirsty men and women around us. In John 7:37–39 Jesus reminds us that to know the fountain of living water we must:
Lucy J Rider summarized this perfectly. In the third verse and chorus of her hymn based on Isaiah 55:1 she penned these words:
Child of the Kingdom be filled with the Spirit!
Nothing but fullness thy longing can meet.
‘Tis the enduement for life and for service;
thine is the promise, so certain, so sweet,
I will pour water on him that is thirsty,
I will pour floods upon the dry ground;
open your heart to the gift I am bringing;
while you are seeking Me, I will be found.
My prayer for The Faith Mission and those who work in it is that God would enable us to be “vessels unto honour” and channels through whom he can flow; that he would bring to our lives those rivers of living water which satisfy our deepest longings and flow out to touch the lives of those we seek to reach.