Water to Share

Let my every day be a dawn graciously

sweeping down the hillside in the still –

sweet not just to thee but to all

who fall upon my path. Let

drink who will as my

face turned

up and

warmed,

as cup

I lift to

see you

fill, and

cool, clear, living water spill

©Janet McDonald

In the course of writing this blog the role of dark nights of the soul in the working out one’s own salvation with fear and trembling has become clearer to me.  For me to desire to give out of nothing takes painful strokes of the potter’s knife as I spin upon his wheel.  As that fine wordsmith Bob Dylan says:

      When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

      You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

That’s right; the widow gave her last coin.  Another widow in the days of the prophets gave the last of her food to God’s prophet, knowing it would mean death to her and her son.  Jesus told the rich man that he needed to give away all that he had in order to follow him.  These things are foreign to the human soul.  It is one thing to give from abundance – quite another to give from lack – and another thing still to give from a state of nothing.

It takes a deep confidence that God will surely supply.  This is so much different from head knowledge and the platitudes we become accustomed to repeating as part of our “Christianese” jargon.  As implied in the Dylan song, God strips away and we become “invisible”, transparent, concealing no secret desires for our own glory.

The dark nights when we struggle will give way to the clear, cool, living water that not only will refresh us, but others.