Thirsty!

"Where did you get that?" I asked a man who came down the aisle in the garden department pushing a cart carrying a lovely, tall plant. He pointed and said it was "back there."  We had been looking for a fern for our front porch for several days, but nobody had one. I told my husband that we had waited too long, since the advent of hot weather seemed to have discouraged the stores from re-stocking them.

But that feathery, fern-like plant would be fine on our screened porch!  And they were on sale, obviously being closed out. I was telling my daughter in a phone conversation about it.  "I can't believe you couldn't find a fern!" she exclaimed.  "They are available everywhere here!"  Well, she lives in a larger area in Georgia, and has several hanging on her wrap-around porch.

"If you get one, just make sure it has a water bowl attached," she advised.  "Ferns in hanging baskets require lots of water." Thinking about our conversation later, it came to me that the same thing is true in the life of a Christian.  We require the refreshing of the Holy Spirit, which should spring up like living water in our souls.

I was touched by something our son Jamie told us the other day.  He said he was playing the piano for a service at Kids' Camp held in their church this past week.  The children, including his little girls, Maddie, 5, and 7-year-old  Anne-Marie, were gathered sitting on the floor for worship time.

"Afterward," he related to  me, "Maddie came up to me and said, 'Daddy, when you were playing the piano, something warm came all over me, and I started to cry.  Then I couldn't quit crying!" It had to have been the  Holy Spirit!

I asked if she was sitting with her sister, but he said the lights had been dimmed and he really couldn't see her. But a little voice that he didn't even recognize in its maturity and clarity came over the microphone that had been set up. It was Maddie testifying about her experience! How precious! I was the one with tears as he told me about it. Thank God for the spiritual atmosphere these children are being raised in!

I was amazed when we were in their home last week and Maddie was persuaded to show me the action movements the kids do when they sing their worship songs at church.  Anne-Marie put on an accompaniment music CD and Maddie, eyes closed, unselfconsciously waved, danced, and at one point, knelt, gracefully prostrating her upper body, arms outstretched with palms on the floor.Then Anne-Marie did a lively, jumping, hand-clapping version to another worship song.

Just as I was attracted to the plant purchase the man had in his cart, people should see something in our lives that make them want to say, or think, "Where did you get that?"  Then we can point them to Jesus, to whom the woman at the well said, "Give me to drink!"