“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and  winter, day and night will never cease.” Gen 8:22

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” Eccl 3:1

Have you been experiencing a general weakness? Or have you been wondering about your purpose? What you are supposed to do at this stage in your life? Sit, relax, God is in control and He is not pointing His finger, worried about time, or wrangling about all the things you ought to have done by this time. God wants your company more than anything else in this world, don’t you believe that? He wants you closer with Him, He wants you richer in your knowledge of His ways and He wants you filled with His good things. Have you met Him in the garden of your heart today? He sees you and He knows you, He knows your face and He loves you, He knows your name. He sees your struggles and He sees your problems; there is nothing hidden in His sight and there is nothing that you go through which He does not know. God loves us all the way. Man’s love fails but God’s love is unconditional and had never changed. Let’s read His promises:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Rom 8:35-37

In this world we suffer hardships and troubles, we also suffer persecution, and even imprisonment when we do what is right such as preach the gospel in hostile territories and countries or stand for what is right such as mobilize a cause against “homosexual agendas” in education and in the society. Some are imprisoned in their seats while others perform in front, others are troubled in their relationships with their masters or employers or fellows or family members. There are countless of trials that we can count or even point at, like the seasons of this earth, they are soon gone. We only pass through them, baptized by fire, baptized with  a fire of sufferings but soon everything will be gone. Indeed because of these, we face death all day long and we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

Yet beloved just as seasons change, every area or stages we pass through on this earth also changes. During autumn the leaves of trees change in color, they fall down, we receive less sunlight and it becomes more damp as it rains. A cooler temperature sets in and we prepare our heaters for eventualities during winter. The most peculiar thing that happens is that unless we adapt to these changes beginning in autumn, we are also unprepared for the winter. Which also teaches us that those who stored their food in summer have a well kept provision by the winter. Ants know this and this is the reason why Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived told us to look at the ants because although “ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer” (Prov 30:25).

During summer these creatures with no one teaching them, instinctively gather as much food as they can collect if they are to survive their winter. Likewise, in our lives, we are to store up morsels of spiritual food. We are supposed to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. It says, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’ (Matt 4:4 NASB). I think that statement is clearly in the present tense, telling us that we are to be related to God at the present, at the moment so that we can be positioned to receive the word of the moment, the word that we need for our cause, for our living, for our situation and for our problems. But whenever we get off centric, whenever we focus on the trivialities of life, we also get out of the center of His will causing us to forget His word of the moment for us. We are then crushed by the realities of this life, that when we stop abiding in the vine, we literally dry up, skin and bones, and when we dry up, we are good for nothing but burning. This is why the fires of this life will either burn us out or it will bring us up to His refiner’s fire.

My beloved, let us think for a moment that you are in your winter season, when the cold realities of this life seems to envelope you and keep you chilling to your bones. Yes these maybe sufferings such as life threatening illness or seemingly irreconcilable differences with your love ones. What are we supposed to do in these times? Like the oak trees whose roots dig deeper into the earth during times of dryness, the people of God should take these times as a way to enhance their relationship with God. Just as the roots of the tree may be initially hurt and abrades as it digs deeper through the earth, the hardness of the earth only strengthens the root itself to get deeper and seek water.

It is also during dry times, times when we feel our enemy has discomfited us that the Lord is just passing by. He is as nearer than we think. The moment we take hold of Him, firm in our grip, He will be the fountain of living water that will quench our thirst. David wrote, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?” (Ps 42:1-2 NASB). Because the Lord is looking for those whose hearts are committed to Him on earth, those who are tired, those who are burnt out and those who in need of healing are high on His lists for His visitation. The Samaritan woman at the well did not expect to meet the only man who could fulfil her heart’s desire, married five times and again living with another man not his own husband, Jesus gently showed her what could really fulfil her longing for true love and acceptance.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but 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.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. John 4:13-19

In our day of microwave conveniences, family life and relationships which are the backbone of the society has crumbled. We see the rate of divorce skyrocketing just like the world, with no difference at staggering 50% and old line denominations are abandoning the truth of the gospel by giving it to the pigs. They have allowed unholy lifestyles to crept in among those who serve the food for God’s children! It is not a question on who is holy but a question on whether we are judging our lives based on the life of Christ, the High Priest and Mediator of the New Covenant, the One we are called to conform our lifestyle with, not the world.

Like this woman who may have been divorced or separated five times from her husbands, many in this life are living in debauchery, entangled and unable to see the path of life. The temporal mist, the comforts and conveniences of this world has blinded the eyes of many to what is eternal and what is true that perishes not so that they could not see past their pleasure, past their comforts. And life to them is what their belly could afford to grind for the day. But all hope is not lost, because Jesus showed the woman of the well that what she truly needs is not another man, is not another material comfort or another fashionable clothe or car but the living water--everyone who thirst, who see their need for the fountain of life are free to come and drink this living water.

This person could have desired for the perfect love from the perfect partner but chance and opportunity would tell us that it did not come. She sought for love in the street corner, she sought for love in the clubs and in the market places but none satisfied her in so much that she has had five husbands to try living with from the emotions of time. She may have been living a wanton life, she may even have been divorced five times or living in adultery but finally, on that day at the well, she truly met what she was really looking for, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” Many among us keep drawing water from cisterns which are  empty, polluted and good for nothing. Having wise up, this woman knew and understood that her bucket and her well are only temporal, they are there for only a time. Her husband may not even be there tomorrow and she had hang all her hopes on man to provide for her present needs. But deep inside her heart, she was wide awake, she was looking for an alternative, she was looking for the genuine touch of the Almighty.

Do you find yourself at this woman’s situation? Are you looking for the real thing? Have you been burnt out by man’s programs, agendas and trainings that seem to bring you from one mountain top to the other but does not really bring the presence of God in your life? Have you been emotionally hyped up? I tell you, there is a great difference when we finally find the wells of living water that does not run dry or does not give polluted waters. It can only refresh the weary, it can only touch and restore our tired and burdened souls. The Lord has this to say to you then my beloved, come and be refreshed, stop gathering from wells that one day would perish, wells that would run dry and disappear, wells that men have created and men will pollute.

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isa 55:1-2).

“The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs” (Isa 41:17-18).