Holly Furtick

Psalm 119:41-42
May your unfailing love come to me, Lord,
    your salvation, according to your promise;
then I can answer anyone who taunts me,
    for I trust in your word

I came across this verse in my Bible reading plan the other day.  It struck me so simply.  When I am filled with the love and promises of the Lord, I have an answer for those who taunt me.

I love how it doesn’t say that I won’t be taunted.  It simply says I will have an answer.  And the reason I will have an answer is because my heart is full.  When my heart is full of the love and promises of God, no person, no demon, not even my own thoughts and insecurities  can penetrate because I am already full and I can pull from that fullness to respond.

The secret is in staying full.  Continually filling my mind with the love and promises found in God’s Word.  His Word is a powerful weapon. And the deeper I root His Word in my heart, the more powerful my weapon becomes.  When Jesus was tempted, even He quoted scripture (Matthew 4).

And the best part is, you don’t have to become a Bible scholar.  God’s Word is powerful enough to speak to you, to fill your heart, even when you start small like with a Bible reading plan.

There are times in my life where I feel overwhelmed with the level of leadership I have been given.  While I feel honored that God would place me in the position I am in as a mother, a wife, and a pastor’s wife, I feel schizophrenic.  Some days, I feel confident that can embrace my position and be greatly used by God, but other days I worry that I am going to fail.  What if people think I am more spiritual than I really am?

The times when my fear of failure is the greatest are the seasons in my life where I am overcommitted and spread too thin.  I can never allow myself to become more wide than I am deep, spiritually speaking.

When I feel myself heading in a direction where I am spending so much time leading others and caring for others that I am not spending any time personally in God’s Word, I know that it is time for me to pull back.  Yes, it is ok to have seasons of busyness, but if my busy season lasts month after month after month, I know that I will find myself in a place of fear and failure.

Confidence in who God has called me to be can really only come from God himself.  So often, when I find myself in a dry space, I seek for that encouragement from others, because I have made no time to let God pour into me, and I still feel empty.

Awareness is the first step.  Knowing that I have committed to too much and am spread too thin.  Intentionality is the second step.  Learning to pull back, say no, and make sure that I am freeing myself up to spend time in God’s Word on a consistent basis.

Overflow is the goal.  I want to live my life in such a way that God pours into me and it overflows into my leadership, my mothering, and my relationship with my husband.  I like the way Paul said it…

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
 Romans 15:13

I recently started drinking more water.  All my life I have tried to be a water drinker but never really liked drinking it.  I preferred to have something with taste.  I would never completely enjoy a meal if I had to drink plain old water with it.  But about 6 months ago, I started drinking water with lemon and really started to not only enjoy drinking water but also craving it.

And the funny thing about water (that does not happen with other drinks, in my opinion) is the more you drink it, the thirstier you become.

I came across John 4 in my Bible reading plan the other day.  It is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well.  He says to her, “I am the living water,” and then he says in verse 13, ”Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

I have always kinda struggled with this passage.  I understand that it is saying, Jesus can fill every void in your life.  But the never thirst again part holds me up because I just have to admit, I still have times of thirst in my life.  Times where I am discontent, or feeling maybe, unfulfilled.

And as I have thought on this passage, the Lord brought my water drinking experience to mind.  The more you drink water, the more you want water.  And it is the same way with Jesus.  The more you drink of Him, the more you want of Him and the more fulfilled you feel.  And feel is the key word, because when Jesus came into my life, He filled me, all the way.  But I don’t always feel that way.

You see, if I fill my day with busyness, even the busyness of good things like caring for my family, and then when I have a few moments to relax, I spend that time in some mindless entertainment, never taking even a fraction of my day to pray and read God’s Word, eventually, I will not even thirst for the things of Christ.  And then eventually I will find myself feeling busy and unfulfilled.

But if I take a few moments each day to focus on Jesus, then I will begin to want more of Him.  I will think more of Him.  And I will see Him in my busyness and I will feel fulfilled because I will know that He is in it all with me.  The more you drink, the thirstier you become.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.”

Being thirsty for Jesus doesn’t start like drinking water from a fire hydrant.  It starts with just drinking a glass every day.