Sermon snippets: The Well and the Prayer..

What an incredible service this morning. We had a visiting speaker, Miles Valley, who has quite a testimony of drugs, street life, found frozen in a snowbank, then miraculously rescued, healed and restored, set apart for God's glory. (Read his full story here.)

In recent times when he was feeling discouraged about the lack of growth in the new church he recently planted, he took a 2-week sabbatical in his old town where he grew up. He shared his testimony in a church there where his former drug buddies, now converted, attended. His one request to God was, "Show me how big You are, God."

First thing the pastor said was, "My sermon today is all about how big God is."
Miles proceeded to buckle up his belt and hear a powerful word from God. But after the sermon, Miles still didn't 'hear' anything.

Right after the service, a guy came up to him and said, "Hey Miles, remember me?"
Miles said, "No, I don't.."
He said, "I'm Jake. I was there in the snowbank too. Now look at us, me a Christian, you, a preacher!"
Miles said to himself, "OK, this is awesome, God."

Suddenly an old lady, probably in her eighties, turns around with tears streaming down her face and said, "Thirty-five years ago, when I read about this young man found frozen in a snowbank, I prayed for him. I never knew what happened to him until now. You have encouraged me today, young man."
Miles said, "Yes, God, You are more than I could ever imagine!"

He shared this quote from G. Campbell Morgan who said about the Samaritan woman, "She went to the well with a bucket and came back with The Well!" How cool is that!

We have The Well inside of us, but instead of drawing from this well daily to satisfy our thirst, we go about drawing from everywhere else, things that do not satisfy. In time, we lose our thirst altogether. We need to cry out again for thirst, thirst for the living God.

He reminded us of the passage when God was choosing the men to fight against the Midianites. God chose only those men who went to the river and were gulping down the water with their hands. They did not just touch or feel the water, they gulped it down thirstily. That's the kind of thirst we should pray for daily.

Funnily enough, it is only when suffering comes that we go to the river in this way. Sometimes, we take just a sip and get dehydrated soon enough. Other times, we draw from our memories of being satiated but it does not refresh a parched soul.

Jesus said, "..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." (John 4:13b, The Holy Bible, NIV Version)

Father, I pray that You will give us a daily thirst for You. May You fill us so that we don't thirst after other things or people that do not satisfy. May that spring of water welling up in us to eternal life spill over on to our families and community and to our world, like this dear old lady, who never knew until 35 years later, what her prayers produced and the fruit of her faithfulness in Miles' gift of evangelism that has brought so many to taste of the Living Water. Thank You, God. I praise You this day.
In Jesus' Name, Amen.