I was reminded recently, through the death of my cousin John, of the profound effect that one person can have on the lives of those around them. The person often doesn’t know the impact that they have had.
Ezekiel, a prophet in the bible, was shown a vision of the river of life. The amazing thing about this river was that it began as a trickle coming out from the temple and as it flowed it grew. Ezekiel was told to walk in the water in the direction it was travelling. At 500 m from its source the water was up to his ankles in another 500 m it was up to his knees, in another 500 m it was up to his waist and then in another 500 m it was water to swim in, a river that no one could cross.
The word translated as trickle is a Hebrew word that means unstable or tears and brings to mind the instability and weakness of a trickle of water.
Jesus said that out of our innermost being shall flow rivers (plural) of living water – what we imagine is great power gushing out of us lifting up and carrying people in its wake. We don’t see this happening so we believe that rivers don’t flow from us – probably because we are unworthy!
Perhaps all of these rivers leave us as faltering trickles and occasionally tears of living water
Perhaps it doesn’t matter about the quantity or apparent power of the flow, perhaps what matters is the source of the water
Jesus said, to a very lost lady he had asked for a drink of water – ‘If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’
Ezekiel saw that the river flowed from the sanctuary into the dead sea, the world, and where the river flows everything lives.
As a young man John became a Christian and influenced my parents to start attending the Salvation Army. This grew into a river of life in all our lives.
My cousin John was killed when the ultralight aircraft he was flying crashed in the Northern Territory in October.
Vale John