Spring House

 

When I was young, my brother and I used to spend two or three weeks in the summer in West Virginia with Papaw and Granny (my mother’s parents).  They would drive to Maryland and pick us up and then go home in West Virginia.  Three weeks later, my parents would come down to get us and take us back home to Maryland.  When my parents arrived, we would go to visit Papaw’s mother, my Great-Granny Epperly.  She had a large two-story clapboard house with a porch on three sides.  Great-Granny Epperly did not have running water.  She had rain barrels at each downspout to catch the rainwater to use for general purposes.  But she had to go down the hill to the spring for clean cooking and drinking water.  When we went down to the spring, my dad explained the rules of the spring house.  Never play in the spring water.  That water was to be used only for drinking and you were not to stir up the mud on the bottom of the spring.  A little metal dipper hung on a nail near the spring, and everyone used the dipper, so you should keep it as clean as possible.  After you were finished drinking the cool water, you were to get one more dipper full, swirl it around in the dipper and then throw it out … downstream.  That assured that the dipper was left clean.  Well, sort of.  On a hot summer day, after I had been playing in the barn or on the ball field, that spring water tasted so good!  David used a picture of a deer panting after cool water to describe his longing for a relationship with God.  David said in Psalm 42:1, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”  Hey, just like I wanted a drink of cool water from the spring at Great-Granny Epperly’s house, I long for a time with the dear Lord above.  Do you long for sweet time with God?  Take a few minutes this morning to read your Bible (God talking to you) and to pray (you talking to God).  It will be as refreshing as a cool drink of water on a hot, dusty day.