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The Garden Hose Theory Of The Spirit

Jesus said, “If anyone drinks the living water I give them, they will never be thirsty again. For when you drink the water I give you, it becomes a gushing fountain of the Holy Spirit, flooding you with endless life!”  John 4:14

Happiness isn’t about God’s Spirit directed toward you. It isn’t about you as a receptacle of the Spirit. It is about God’s Spirit flowing through you.

There is nothing more joyful than God working through you to impact the life of another.

Realizing our limited resources, it is too easy to say “no” to God’s plans. You don’t have the experience, the time, or the money, not to mention abounding COVID. Personally, nothing that I have done in my life of following Jesus began with the thought, “I can do this.”

I resisted, I wasn’t capable. I’m familiar with Jonah when it comes to faith, and I’m glad that I learned to swim at an early age because I’ve had the “Peter walking on water experience” several times.

I have a garden hose that I use to water my yard in the summer.

Looking at the hose, I could think, “HHHHMMMHHH, not a lot of water in this hose. I’d better put it in drip mode.”

My garden hose is connected to a spigot that is connected to the piping in my house that connects to our city water supply which has deep wells. These deep wells are connected to the Teays aquifer system. The Teays extends from Illinois, through Indiana, under Springfield, Ohio, and then southeast to West Virginia.

An underground river or lake extending hundreds of miles out of which many cities pump millions of gallons of water daily. Amazing too, that with all the millions pumped every day, that the Teays shows no sign of depletion.

Some call this the largest underground lake in the world.

Now when I look at my garden hose, I realize that I need a bigger hose.

I’m connected to enough water from my small hose to end the drought in California. I have water to cause flowers to come forth in the deserts of Israel. If I could access it all, not one person in the entire world would be thirsty.

It’s the same spiritually, with the Spirit flowing through us.

The statements of Jesus throughout John’s Gospel now make sense:

Look at all the people coming—now is harvest time! Their hearts are like vast fields of ripened grain—ready for a harvest.  John 4:35

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then took the loaves and having given thanks, He distributed to those who were seated.  John 6:10-11

Ask me anything in my name, and I will do it for you!  John 14:14

To repeat, there is nothing more exciting than God’s Spirit working through you.

Use a fire hose!

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