The hole...

The hole...

A friend, who is currently serving in Mozambique, sent me this story ...she was attending a local church service when this young man spoke..

"One young man spoke about a vision God gave him during the service.

In his vision God walked him through an area of burned, black trees. He asked God, 'What is this?" God said, "Go find out"

They came to a clearing that was totally burned, nothing alive in it and there was a hole in the center. He asked again "What is this?" God said, "Go find out"

So he went and looked in the hole, in the hole there was something white that looked like a bat that was blocking the hole and when he asked God "What is this?" God said, "This is your heart and this creature is resentment that is stopping My joy from flowing". He said, "What do I do?" and God said, "Remove it, cast it out and bitterness with it." He said, "Your resentment to Me, family, people, government has stopped My joy from flowing" And he said when he threw it out then water started to come up out of the hole. He asked God, “What is that?" and God told him it was His joy. He said he apologized to God and cried, but that he didn't know, and God, like He does, just comforted him and said He knew that."

Such an eloquent and heartfelt story...God working in a life to show him that illustration of stopped joy...or any other "stopped blessings" when we allow resentment, bitterness, fear, anger, etc..to cover the blessings of His presence or provision ....

Personally, I don't want those waters to stop flowing, but I stop them at times when I hold on to unconfessed sins, hidden resentment or anger... Or whatever that blocks God's joy in my life...

Thank YOU for this illustration from around the world, but speaks to life everywhere...

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
Jesus answered, “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.”
John 4:10,13-14

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. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
John 7:37-38

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23,25

Teach me your way,  Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead.
Psalm 86:11-13