Drinking or Drudgery?

Wednesday 3/19/2014 6:12 AM

My reading today includes John 6:37, “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’”  The passage then goes on to describe the people arguing about who Jesus was, a prophet or the Messiah, and whether the Messiah could come from Galilee or from Bethlehem.

God desires to have a relationship with people, to fulfill their deepest longings and desires.  Too often, instead of reveling in the love and joy of God, Christians get caught up in trying to “keep the rules” or we argue amongst ourselves about what the rules are.  In his book Prayer, Simon Tugwell writes, “God himself, like a shrewd taverner, has come to us first, to seduce us away from the narrow path of worldly duty, to know the sweetness of his love.  Are we ready to be the prodigal come home, welcomed with a party?  Or are we going to insist on being the good boy, the elder brother, prepared to do only his duty, but not to celebrate the feast of love?”

As a Christian it is too easy to get caught up in the rule-following; having a time of prayer before meals, attending Sunday worship, tithing my income, etc., but miss out on the joy of reveling in the love of God, of sitting on the patio with God, enjoying a cold beer with the Taverner.  I want my relationship with God to be less of the rule-following, head knowledge, and more of the revelry of experiencing his love.