Monday Morning Meditation

 

Potholers
Southern ADK

I've been meditating on the following Scripture from Isaiah:

" Is anyone thirsty? Come, and drink....." Isaiah 55:1a NLT (New Living Translation)

and then later in the chapter at verse 3b:

"Come to Me with your ears wide open.  Listen---and you will find Life.... 

and then in verse 6: 

"Seek the Lord while you can find Him. Call on Him now while He is near" 

But when I read it in the New King James Version, verse 2b really jumped out:

"Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance." 

I re-read the verses and then silenced my thoughts. I began to meditate (think deeply) on what I had read and what God might be saying here.  

It reminded me of when I was working out on the treadmill Saturday morning. I had on my yoga pants, a tee shirt and my power walking sneakers. I can no longer run due to disc herniations in the spine.  They no longer give me pain, thanks to good chiropractic work and daily exercises.  But once you have them, you can not run or do high impact workouts. It can exacerbate the issues immediately or years later.  So....I had set the treadmill for the "weight loss routine" at a level 2 which is like a HiiT routine.  It got my heart rate up to the cardio load level and beyond.  But.....

the 30 minute workout also left me with a deep thirst. I had put my water bottle on the treadmill to grab when needed but I think I only grabbed it twice in the 30 minutes. 

As the treadmill slowed to the recovery walk, I couldn't wait to be done, wipe my sweaty face with the towel and go upstairs to the kitchen for a big tall iced glass of refreshing water.  

As I poured the water over the ice, it reminded me of the waterfalls I had hiked to with a friend of mine in the autumn of 2024.  It's called Potholers.  We were the only people there!  It's miles from civilization and in fact, you drive about 10 miles down a dirt road to a specific spot, park, and then hike just a few hundred yards to the river where the falls are.  I never would have found this spot if my friend hadn't gone previously with other friends. As we sat there, it was the kind of autumn day that when the sun was out, it was very warm.  We were sitting on that log you see behind the falls.  I wanted to just reach down and scoop up some of that refreshing, pure water.  But it's not really pure, is it?    Nowadays we have to think about acid rain, giardia  aka "beaver fever" ( which I've had and it is NOT pleasant!), and other bacteria that has tainted our beautiful waters. 

Thankfully, we did have our filtered water bottles with us. 

This morning's Scripture time  that I had before I went to a class I take at church, reminded me that only Jesus can really satisfy our spiritual thirst.  He is the Living Water as told to the Samaritan woman He spoke with at the well. 

 

and when John had the vision of the new heaven and the new earth, when Jesus returns, he said this in Revelation 21:

And God the Father describes Himself as the living water in Jeremiah: 

Jesus is also known as the "Bread of Life".  How do we partake of the "bread of life".  Bread means sustenance.  Water is cleansing.  The bread refers to the Word of God.  We must partake of His Word daily to stay strong. Just like I have to workout daily to remain strong and healthy, so too do we need Scripture to remain spiritually strong and healthy.    This is what is meant by "eat what is good".  The Word of God? It's good. It's vital for our soul. 

Are you partaking of the life-giving water today and chewing on the Word of God? 

It's the way to an abundant life.