From the Home Place

May 29, 2026

At 3:30 a.m. the temperature is 53 degrees, moving up to 81 later today. Oh ya, the wind is going to blow as well, surprise, surprise!

For the last week, Miss Deb and I have been working on duding-up the front yard. Hauling dirt, sculpting mounds, putting down ground barrier, nailing edging strips into place, planting flowers and shrubs, and watering at least twice each day. When there isn’t any water coming out of the sky, we have to depend upon water out of the ground to keep the plants alive.

May I ask, how many times a day do you turn on a faucet, either to get a drink, to get water to cook with, or water to keep plants alive? It seems to me that for most of us, we just expect to turn on a faucet and have water instantly flowing for our use. From keeping us hydrated, plants and critters alive, to taking a shower and flushing the toilet, we us the most important products available to humanity and seldom ever give it a thought.

Over my years of walking across this ‘ol ball of dirt, I have lived in places where we had to carry water from the well. I’ve lived in places where we had to be very careful about our water usage, or the well would run dry. I have lived in places where we had to haul water from another source. I’ve lived in places where the water was so full of minerals that it could not be used for drinking, and washing clothes in that water left them with a permanent stain. And then, I have lived in places where there seemed to be an endless supply of this precious commodity in its clear, clean and cold form!

Yep, without water, none of us are going to survive very long, yet we seldom stop long enough to thank God for providing this life-giving product. I have always marveled that in the Creation Story of the Bible, we read of how God provided everything humans need to exist as far as food, but we are never told that God provided water for us to drink and use; yet God did provide it, in abundance.

Now, let’s turn to spiritual matters with another question; “How often do you thank God for giving you His Holy Spirit to keep your soul well-watered?” Jesus told the woman at the well, that He would give her “living water.” In John 4:14 we read about Jesus telling this woman, “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Jesus was speaking of the free-flowing, life-giving spiritual water that one receives only from Him. As a born-again Christian this water supply is always available to you, constantly sustaining and nourishing you toward maturity in Christ, and most of us will not ever pause to praise God for His amazing provision! For the most part, believers will probably live their overly busy lives, seldom pausing long enough to drink deeply of the spiritual water Jesus gives through His Spirit.

You see my friends, just like the hundreds of gallons of ground water you will likely use today without thinking about it; if you are a Christ-follower you will also use hundreds of gallons of spiritual water without thinking about it as well. So, right now, stop and thank your Heavenly Father that He has given you an endless supply of spiritual water through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the well spring of spiritual water!

If you want to get really carried away, give a similar praise each time you use earthly water today. For you see my friend, too often we get so focused upon the physical blessings of this life that we usually ignore the spiritual blessings. With the temperature reaching 81 degrees today, Miss Deb and I will need to stop often for a refreshing drink of water, perhaps we should also stop long enough to drink from the well of spiritual life?

Praising God for both physical and spiritual water with you, Neal