Wisdom's Call: 30 Days in the House of LifeEsimerkki

STAGNANT WATERS

On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.”

He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. ( John 7:37–39)

Wisdom and life were made to be poured out onto others, not kept to ourselves.

When we abide safely in Wisdom’s house and drink deep from her wellsprings, then by the power of the Holy Spirit streams of living water will flow from wisdom’s life source into our hearts, and then onto others. If a river loses its outlet, its water cannot stay clean. God has made it so that a steady water cycle provides life and provides it constantly. This principle is embedded in His universe.

Rivers find their source at their headwaters, perhaps from a sea, ocean, a bubbling underground spring, or melting snow. From their source, fresh water flows downstream creating river flow, gathering water and vapor from above and below. It carves channels of life throughout the landscape, bringing sustenance and gathering animals and communities to settle along its banks. It is the wellspring of daily human life as well; clothes are washed clean, dinners are made, children are born and grow older, spreading into the countryside in the quest for other streams; life continues. All the while, the current carries the flow along naturally, as if in a life of its own.

The river will flow until it finds sweet release at the end of its journey and the beginning of another, pouring from the river’s mouth into a welcoming tributary, and start the self-cleansing, life-giving process all over again. The pool will evaporate, become rain, pour down, and restart its cycle as the river’s source.

Until it doesn’t.

If there is no flowing current—or worse, no outlet—the water gathers and quickly becomes a fouled cesspool, full of disease. With no current or outlet, still waters putrefy and emit vapors that destroy and kill. All of its immediate inhabitants suffer slowly, agonizingly. They don’t even have to drink; proximity is enough to set the parasites swarming around any life that approaches. It begins to look like Folly’s house, with toxic bacteria and deadly viruses breeding disease and death. Those that love decay and capitalize on death—flies, mosquitoes, larvae—congregate, looking for unwitting hosts to devour.

All our actions derive from a source, and their results prove in which house we dwell. They will reveal whether we’ve drunk from Wisdom’s invigorating stream or have imbibed the sour contents of Folly’s stagnant pool of death.

Once we are full of life, the river of life needs a mouth to speak life and all the riches it has found in Wisdom’s home, so that it may release its overflow and cause more life to come. That’s the nature of regenerative, life-giving wisdom; out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Wisdom will flow into any heart that is willing to capture, receive, and start new life.

So from our mouths we speak wisdom, lest we become stagnant waters ourselves; we cannot keep the goodness of God’s wisdom to ourselves. We speak Christ . . . and as we do, the Spirit flows from one to another, and so flows Life.