Feeling a little thirsty? Here’s how to stay hydrated …

By the time you actually feel thirsty, your body is already in dangerous need of water. A dry mouth and a sandpaper tongue indicate that your system is desperately searching for a way to rehydrate its cells. So staying properly hydrated means drinking water before you need it. And we all know this. The old eight cups of water a day rule, right? But these are the things that suddenly seem extra important when the heat index is 103 degrees and you’re dropping the ten-year-old off for baseball practice. Welcome to the dog days of summer here in the South.

“But, Mom, I’m not thirsty. I’ll drink when I’m thirsty,” my red-faced sweaty boy insists. And then he’s crying on the floor from a blinding headache by bedtime. “Water,” I tell him every day, “more water than you think you need.” And he shakes his head at the ridiculousness of it. Why would you drink when you’re not thirsty?

And I get it. You see, I know that going to bed early makes me feel better the next day. But that doesn’t mean I shut my brain down and climb the stairs at a reasonable hour. I know that drinking less coffee will help me think more clearly, but I still pour that third cup. And saying No more often will calm the crazy spin of my life, but Yes comes right out of my mouth. I know all of these things. But I do not do them.

I wait.

I wait until I can’t breathe. Until a decision needs to be made and I’m frozen with the fear of getting it all wrong. And then I wish all of those intentions could come back and save me. And I wonder why I’m parched for a drink I’d forgotten I needed.

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.“ This is the strangest promise that Jesus makes to a woman who comes to a well to draw water in the crushing midday heat. Living water? A well that never runs dry? This sounds too good to be true. And this Samaritan woman has no idea what he means. And if I am being honest, I often don’t either.

I can recite many words of Scripture. I am with you always. Fear no evil. Do not be anxious about anything. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I know all of the right tings to say.

But so often I run through my days leaving them in a cup on the counter. Thirsty, but unaware that I possess the very “living water” that could save me.

And the thing that Jesus tells this Samaritan woman at the well is the very thing that I need to remember here in the middle of the scorching August heat.

“Everyone who drinks of this water …” The water will sustain you — but you have to drink it.

It echoes the Old Testament words of the prophet Isaiah as well. “See I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

I’m fine, I say. I’m not thirsty. And the water sits untouched. The promises stay unclaimed while I spend sweat and tears striving to find the right road to get through the desert.

Drink the water, I tell the dehydrated child. Just stop and drink it. He tips the water jug back and chugs at an alarming rate; water splashing and spilling all down the front of his dirty uniform. But then he smiles with delight.

You see the truth is we are human. We will get thirsty again. Not because Jesus’ water doesn’t satisfy but because we are creatures who continually forget to keep drinking.

I watch the boy and the water as the late August sun beats in through the window and I hear it like this.

Your soul is thirsty for that which you cannot give yourself. I AM the water that springs up in the wasteland. I AM peace in the middle of chaos and joy when sorrow seems to have had the last word. I AM water that covers and fills you. Take. Drink. I AM with you.

And I need this every day. Maybe you, too? A way for the Word to be made flesh and incarnated into my walking around and decision making; into my kid wrangling, word typing and relationship building. I need to know that it isn’t by my own strength that I do any of this; that it isn’t all up to me. I get thirsty for more than the self-reliant ways my head insists on.

But it doesn’t come naturally. Stopping and drinking when you feel as though you’ve got it all under control is hard to do. Sometimes I hear that verse about God doing new things and creating water in the wasteland and I think it’s my job; those new things and that water producing. How will I make this work? I wring my hands and search for spigots.

“See, I AM doing a new thing…” My eyes land on the verse again as I pour another cup of water for my baseball player. He stops and drinks the whole cup in one breath.

“I am making a way in the desert and streams in the desert.”

Hydrated, my little guy grabs his gear and heads for the car. “I’m ready now, Mom!”

My shoulders settle and my breathing relaxes. Maybe, I think, as the boy loosens up his glove and we head to the field, going forward into new seasons with faith is simpler than I think.

Drink the water. And then? Go play ball.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask for or imagine according to His power at work in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen!” (Ephesians 3:20-21).