Even a good house on solid rock needs a little water

My brother and sister-in-law came to visit us from San Antonio a couple of weekends ago. We had a fabulous time visiting with all of our humongous family, walking the Big Dam Bridge (a bridge over the dam; what did you think I said?), talking and talking. Ali began telling us a story about their house. A few months ago they had noticed a crack on the floor tile but didn't think anything of it. Later they realized that the crack was spreading across the house and even going up on the wall. Come to find out, an inspector later, they found out the foundation had cracked because the soil around it was dry...too dry...even for Texas weather. I can imagine my brother wide-eyed and blinking, "hmmm....I guess a year of not watering the yard and just letting nature take care of itself, didn't do us any good."

So a few days ago I was driving around thinking about how spiritually dry I have felt for some time now. My brother's house came to mind. I also reminisced about a sermon my father preached 2 weekends ago. It was about the wise man who built his house on a rock vs. the foolish man who built his on sand. We all know how that story goes. But I never thought of the opposite possibility. Rather than, "the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell-- and great was its fall." (matthew 7:27)... There *can* be such a thing as not enough H2O! Hmmm..."there was a drought in Texas, my brother was saving on the water bill, the sun scorched the soil, and it started to get to the foundation; and it cracked-- a great, BIG old crack, like all things BIG in Texas!"

I meditated on this while I was driving. You can have a great foundation, but how amazing that the soil's humidity around you can still affect you to the point where your walls crack? So I began thinking that for some time now (more like years), I hadn't been fed on a regular basis in one way that I expected or needed. My previous job description kept me from personally munching on a Sunday morning sermon, meanwhile regurgitating a simultaneously interpreted sermon into another language for someone else to think about. I stretched myself in ways that led to my detriment & deterioration over seven years (only listening to perhaps a dozen sermons without interpreting). True, I did self-feed thru inductive Bible study and learned from others in informal settings. But I realize how much *I* (Inés) need & love the Word of God taught to me, a little, ignorant sheep, from a shepherd. I think back to when Jesus asked Peter 3 times if Peter loved Him, and Peter responded, "Lord, you know I *like* you.", and Jesus would reply to that, "then feed my sheep." What an intense command to Peter! It required not just that Peter *like* Jesus, but that he *love* Jesus, as well as the sheep he would feed! (And do you know who taught me this truth?? Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, 8 years ago! And I never forget.)

So, I'm going to this new church where I actually get to sit & listen, and the only thing that catches my heart is the Word of God taught in power, in love, with the Spirit's anointing, and it's like I've never heard these words before! My "giggles, hmm's and my amen's" must be surprising and maybe even annoying to those sitting around me. But you don't understand, when you're thirsty and you get a cold, glistening glass of water, it's like no better drink in the world! I feel like a little child hearing for the first time. I'm sure there are other issues that contribute to this melancholic mood, but I'm taking it one step at a time, and this is one thing I've figured out.

The Lord's promise to us who are thirsty,
with dry, cracked foundations,
with having received insult and injury, is this:

"And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,

And give strength to your bones;

And you will be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;

You will raise up the age-old foundations;

And you will be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.

If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot

from doing your own pleasure on my Holy day,

And call the sabbath a delight...and honor it...then you will take delight in the Lord."

Isaiah 58:11-14.