Free Write Friday: “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.’” (John 7:37) Have you ever heard this and thought, “I came to you thirsty… where are these rivers of living water??” What might it be to name with God today what your *actual* experience is, when it comes to the life of God in you? To say “I’m still thirsty!” and let that longing (and perhaps accompanying anger, disappointment, or confusion) stand there with you? What if this kind of honesty is the very thing that makes it possible for us to notice when the waves of God’s love really are, in fact, flowing through, creating a rhythm of life in our depths that just keeps on pouring, even without our awareness? What if our inability to lament (because some of these are things we believe we “shouldn’t” say…or feel…or think) what feels like lack is exactly what is blocking us from experiencing it all? Consider taking some time this afternoon to write out all the true feelings in you around your life with God and the waves of Love and your thirst. Let it open up, there on the page/there in you. Name the emptiness. How does God respond to your words, your emotions, if you have any sense of that?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2023-06-16 20:30:40 UTC