Like Cold Water… :: Deeper Devotion

Proverbs 25:25
Like cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a distant land.

There’s something breathtaking to me about the smell of freshly cut grass. The sensation hits my nose, rushes through my lungs and somehow finds its way to my mind, triggering a wealth of memories. I know it sounds lame, but it’s the truth. I imagine this influence can only exist on account of my high school love affair with mowing lawns. I owned my own trailer, mower, and weed eater. Possibly the most anticipated moment of the day was each time I finished a lawn, loaded up my mower, and downed a gallon of water in the front seat of my car. I wasn’t thinking about the sweat I was leaving on the seat or the grass in the floorboard, only the sensation of cool water running down my throat and into my stomach.

Have you ever had a drink of ice-cold water in the middle of a hot day? You can literally feel the water working its way through your chest. It’s like a pebble breaking the stillness of a pond, starting from your innermost being and spreading outward, the waves of refreshing coolness permeate the remainder of your body. “So is good news from a distant land.”

In a day of instant news and inexhaustible knowledge at our fingertips, it’s hard to imagine what life must have been like when people had to wait for months after an event to hear the good news. Today we know within minutes of the beginning or ending of a war. Often times, generals of the past wouldn’t even know of a peace treaty until days after it was signed. The arrival of the good news was to them, like refreshing water to a weary soul.

Strangely enough, this Proverb also brings me back to my first Greek class. I remember the day I found out our word for Gospel, comes from a Greek word pronounced evangellian. Simply put, it means good news. To the Jewish people, this is exactly what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was. He was their long awaited Savior, their promised Messiah. For centuries they had been assured a Redeemer from God and the prophets. His arrival and His message was nothing less than good news. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was like a refreshing glass of ice-cold water to the weary souls of an oppressed people. It was very good news.

I wonder what the good news of Jesus Christ is to you? Have you been spoiled by the fast paced society we live in? I urge you to not allow the Gospel of Jesus Christ to become as common as the good news we hear after a war ends or a baby is born. I ask that His message would be the most anticipated moment of your day. I hope that like a bottle of water exploding within my chest, your anticipation of the Word of God would result in a shocking permeation of your entire being. I pray that with every encounter, the good news of Jesus Christ would strike your innermost being like a pebble and spread outward, like the waves in a lake. All it takes is the needed anticipation.

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