“For there is hope for a tree — if it’s cut down, it sprouts again and grows tender, new branches. - Job 14:7

There are those today who feel like Job, whose lives are like this tree, especially today in this current climate of disease and violence. They feel as if they’ve been cut down. Their dreams and hopes have been broken and shattered with the pieces being scattered with seemingly no hope of ever being reassembled. Disease, illness, financial set back, violence, or a loss of a loved one has taken its toll and a sort of deadness has settled inside of them.

But we don’t have to remain in this condition. Now, I know how easy it is to stay in this condition, but we don’t have to. There’s hope for a new beginning, a renewal of our life, ministry and most importantly in our relationship with the Lord. There’s hope for our sprouting up again as a tender shoot. The question is how?

Though its roots have grown old in the earth, and its stump decays, it may sprout and bud again at the touch of water, like a new seedling.- Job 14: 8-9

And so, my desire today is to show everyone the way to the water, the living water of the Holy Spirit, to renew, invigorate, and revive our souls and spirits. Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, of living water.

Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ - John 4:10.

So even a despised Samaritan woman who has had 5 husbands, currently living with a man that was not even her husband, a sinner, despised even by her own people, coming in shame in the heat of the sun to draw water, instead of in the cool of the early morning with the other women, could receive “living water” and all she had to do was ASK!!!

Today’s Gospel reading makes it absolutely clear - we don’t have to wait for the blessing of the “River of Life” (our New Testament Reading at Matins tonight). Wonderful as that will be, we can have a taste of the Kingdom here and now. We can have that water in our lives NOW! Just ASK for it!