Psalm 23:1-3
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
The pace of life can move extremely fast, communicating societal and self-imposed pressure to keep up. We may work towards family, professional, financial, educational, entrepreneurial, or personal goals. The beauty of Psalm 23 is that the Scripture reminds us that all we need in life is provided by God; thus, it is ok to slow down.
When we put our faith and trust in God, focusing on His path for our lives, we can be released from the pressure to keep up with others. We can let go of goals measured by human standards and likely not aligned with God’s will. This passage also reminds us to rest and refresh our mind, body, and spirit. To rest means freedom from activity or labor. Resting can be a state of calm and ease. Once we’ve rested, let’s think about how to refresh ourselves and our environment. Refreshing brings new strength and energy to reinvigorate us. We can refresh our minds, bodies, and spirits through disconnecting, engaging in activities or with people who bring us joy, dedicating time to reconnect with God, and receiving a renewed word to disrupt the things that may weigh us down.
What does a state of rest look like for you? When access to your ideal resting environment is unavailable, what can you do to find a few minutes to quiet your mind, body, and spirit?
Proverbs 11:25
“A
generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”
As busy mothers, aunties, sisters, wives, friends, business women, and caretakers, the last thing you want to think about is finding time to do one more thing. But what if that one thing is exactly what you need to enable you to show up better in your day-to-day life? What if giving back to others is the key to a fulfilling life? There is a saying that goes, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” Yes, this is true. But how do you get the cup full so that you can pour out?
Proverbs 11:25 (NIV) tells us “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” Although the work you do for others at times seems arduous, there is not a moment where it is in vain. This Scripture defines the principle of reciprocity and the benefits of generosity present for believers. There is also not a moment of generosity that does not yield reciprocity for you. It suggests that those who are generous and help others will, in turn, experience goodness and replenish what we need to pour out. How you serve others, care for others, help others without obligation, informs how you are in turn replenished. In addition, the extra hour to help a mentee with a cover letter, the thoughtful moment we take to check on a grieving friend, the love offering via Cashapp we give to a nephew in college, all count towards our personal cycle of good. There is a sense of gratification that accompanies these acts of kindness that are unexplainable and undeniable. As you contribute to the well-being of others, you will undoubtedly experience God’s blessings in big and small ways. These blessings fill you up and allow the cycle of goodness and giving to continue. The good news is that you do not have to give blindly. You have a blueprint of Jesus Christ to inform how you give and most importantly, why you give.
Give to others. Keep your cup full so that you can always pour from an overflowing cup.
How will you endeavor to keep your cup full? Where would the Lord have you pour out to someone else this week?
Isaiah 58:9-11
“Then you will call, and the Lord will answer, you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
This portion of Scripture is placed within the context of fasting and the Israelites inquiring of the Lord about the Lord’s perceived silence to their prayers and lack of response to them fasting. Their inquiry led to a necessary invitation from God to accountability and self-reflection. They were in consistent patterns of tension amongst one another, consistently forfeiting a just society for all, and needed a perspective shift. They needed a perspective shift grounded in accountability and the vision of their desired liberation. They needed a perspective shift necessary for creating a safe community for all. What the Scripture promises is as they commit to working towards a safe community for all, they will find themselves heard, cared for, protected and refreshed by God. Their perspectives caused them to neglect what mattered most and made them believe that it was just through action alone that would move the heart and hand of God. However, their actions became less thoughtful, more self-centered and over time these practices lost the true essence to maintain connection with the Lord.
Even still, the Lord invited them to go deeper. The Lord invited them to reflect and truly realign their intentions, actions, practices, and devotion. As the saying goes, “actions speak louder than words,” and in this case neither action nor words were aligning with God’s heart. The Lord invited them to engage in actions and practices, such as fasting and prayer, with thoughtfulness and intentionality. God is consistently inviting us to do the same today as we look towards the vision of freedom for others and ourselves.
Are your current actions, behaviors, and practices aligned with the Lord’s heart for community? Where do you sense God’s influence in your life to serve others and create safe communities for all?
John 4:13-14 NIV
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.”
In the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel, we witness the intentional encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, a place of refreshing. This woman needed and received a refreshing that transformed her life. Beloved, you and I are like this Woman; we often seek out human means to satisfy deep desires in our souls. You know the call you make or take when the day is long; the place you go because it’s familiar; the company you keep because it seems better than being lonely. If there’s one thing you and I learn from the Woman at the Well and her intentional encounter with Jesus, it is that Jesus will meet us where we are to give us what we need most. Jesus chose to go where she was to meet a need she didn’t fully understand. She had her watering pot and was ready to receive water that would meet an immediate need, but Jesus offered her something that would replace the immediate need with an abundant supply of life-giving water. Jesus tells her and he’s telling us, daughter, what I have for you exceeds your expectations and will become its own resource within and through you because it comes from Me.
Beloved, as you and I seek to be refreshed, may we remember that the refreshing God gives also benefits those we’re in community with. May we, like the Woman at the Well, share with others that Jesus is the greatest source of refreshing. This may include sharing Scripture that has comforted you, praying with someone going through a difficult time, or listening to someone who needs to talk.
In what way will you share your refreshing with someone who needs lifegiving water?
John 7:37-38
“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.”
Psalm 63:1
“Early in my Christian journey, I found myself saying with the Psalmist, O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.”
Although baptized as a child, I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior in my late twenties. I remember ‘thirsting’ in the knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is. There was something happening on the inside of me that I just could not explain, and I wanted more, more of the One who loved me, saved me, and placed joy in my spirit despite my circumstances. But something happened; I call it life - responsibilities, people and things. If we are not careful, we may find ourselves going through the motions of a relationship with God, all the while spiritually thirsty.
In recent years, I started to experience the feelings I had early on in my Christian walk. Something was missing and I began to thirst, which is why I love this text. … 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.” In other words, Jesus wanted to make sure everyone, which is all inclusive, heard what he had to say. He wanted those of us who found ourselves in a drought condition to know living water is still available. As he said earlier in John’s Gospel to the Woman of Samaria, “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 4:14
Sisters, Jesus promises a refreshing, life-giving stream, which may be found in the Holy Spirit so that our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and innermost desires can be purified and revitalized and filled with life flowing water. He says, come to me, accept me, trust me, and I will put in you a new life through my Spirit. He says, everyone who believes in him in accordance with Scripture will have their thirsty souls quenched and living water will flow.
To hunger and thirst for God is at the core of who we are in Christ. We seek more of Him, not just in knowledge but in our relationships with Him and with others, in our actions, what we do and what we say, in our obedience, which very well may cost us something.
Seeking to refresh your thirsty soul, what ways can you, today, drink from the rivers of living water that only Jesus can provide?
Acts 3:19 NIV
“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that the times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
There are five words you likely hated to hear as a child: We have company coming over. Whatever plans you had were immediately replaced with a frantic list of chores to clean the house. If the timing was tight, we would take a shortcut and clean only those spaces guests would see. Isn’t this just like our spiritual lives sometimes? Like the Israelites who witnessed Peter healing the lame beggar, sometimes we see miracles happening in the lives of other believers and wonder how we, too, can experience God’s divine power. The text reminds us that the path to the fullness of what God has for us is through the repentance of our sins and believing in Him. Repentance calls us to search ourselves and not just clean the spaces that others can see but to turn away from all sin and turn to God. There are no shortcuts. Today, we are grateful that we don’t have to remain where we are and have another chance to get it right. God’s refreshing is available to us, both now and in eternity.
What areas of your life need to be fully turned over to God so you can experience refreshing from the Lord? Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and release what comes to your mind. Thank God for his love and forgiveness!
3 John 1:2 NKJV
“Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you even as your soul prospers.”
At the heart of this verse, if everything else temporarily shifted out of view, this is a message from a friend who simply wants what’s best for his friend. John recognizes and is familiar with the weight that comes from leading, building, and sustaining a ministry built on a brand-new faith, and driven by brand-new believers. It is out of this familiarity, that John is sending a word of encouragement. Did you catch that? Before he gets to the instruction, he offers comfort, my friend, I want you to be well. In this moment of reassurance, John reminds Gaius of the connection between soul and body, and in doing so he highlights the importance of caring for BOTH. Soul prosperity cannot exist in a body that is too drained to press forward, nor is body prosperity purposeful if the soul is crushed. This brief, but mighty Scripture speaks volumes to the power of an encouraging word from a friend, family member, or a Sista who just...gets it. And is a testament to our duty to steward both body and soul if we seek to be effective in the Kingdom of God.
Write out one thing you can do TODAY (not tomorrow, not next week) to nourish your soul and one thing you can do TODAY to nourish your body. And then – this is the hard part – you have to do it!
My dear sister, I want you to be well. Just as John offered encouragement to Gaius in the letter of 3 John – may you find encouragement in this moment. Know that no matter what you are building, leading, or carrying – we want you to be well. And, in order for that to be possible – you must take care of both your soul AND your body. In the busyness of life, it can be so easy to overlook the stewarding of our soul or the nourishment of our body because we are trying to keep everything else afloat. But for you to truly show up for others, you must show up for yourself. Once you complete today’s response, come back to this page and write how it made you feel. Go be well my sister, in Jesus’ name.
