Thank you, Todd Blackledge

“For the fountain of life pours into you every time that you find me, and this is the secret of growing in the delight and favor of God.” PS 8:35

This little breakfast biscuit of Old Testament wisdom and a good cup of coffee will surely start the day right! We owe thanks to Todd Blackledge, former PSU and Pro football player and current ESPN sports analyst, for this beautiful reminder today. This was what he tweeted recently. I follow Todd because every morning he tweets a brief scripture that always speaks into my day. Maybe I should use his daily tweets as a lectionary and call it the Blackledge Uncommon Lectionary. (The Common Lectionary is a prescribed set of weekly scriptures in a three year cycle. Each week contains an Old Testament, New Testament, Epistle and a Psalm selection. It was created so that pastors wouldn’t preach John 3:16 every Sunday.) But I digress.

This Psalm is striking in that it would easily be a modern day meme or Pinterest graphic. Can’t you see it on a black and white kitchen chalkboard, or stenciled onto a tea towel? Except if it were, it would probably, and very wrongly, substitute the word “Universe” for “God”. Somehow society has decided that the “Universe” has some kind of mystical power over us, as though the Universe is a force unto itself. Social media is full of this stuff, and it is alarming to me to see how many people quote, worship, and rely on the “Universe” for guidance and answers.

As if.

Only the Creator of the Universe has any power over us. Only the one who called the Universe into its very existence can give direction, healing, and answers. Looking to the “universe” for help and meaning is a dry and fruitless search. Nothing to see there, except dust and hollowness. The “universe” is a product of creation, not the author of it.

The Psalmist knew this, and knew that God is the only source of the fountain of life. Indeed, life pours into us when we seek and find God, and the fountain contains living water. Jesus is that effervescence, who brings a sparkling promise into the stillness of our parched throats. As the French would say, he is water ‘avec gas’…..bubbly, alive, moving and thirst-quenching for life.

Jesus called himself Living Water, and taught us that if we drink of his Living Water, we will never thirst again. This caught a young woman very off guard at a well once, when she had come at noon to fill her pitcher. Jesus startled her first by asking to drink from her non-kosher pitcher, a big no-no for their two cultures. Immediately he was letting her know that she was accepted. The mid-day meeting indicated that her own culture had ostracized her and she was not permitted to gather water early in the morning with the rest of the gals. But Jesus accepted her. He then revealed his Messiahship and offered her Living Water:

John 4:13 Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

If you desire to grow in the “delight of God and enter into his pleasure”, you only need to enter into his presence. Coming before him daily, as we do when we sit with that marvelous thing he created on the eighth day….coffee in a favorite mug….delights him. Searching your heart when you search the scriptures delights him. Taking everything to him in prayer delights him. Drinking a full glass of living water every day delights him. Did you hear that? YOU delight the creator of the universe. Go, you! And go this day to delight him.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+4&version=NLT