Have you ever seen rats race? I have seen wiener dogs race, horses, cars, people etc. but never rats. But alas I digress; the phrase speaks of business without purpose or significance, that feeling of being in a wheel running very fast and going nowhere. The days, weeks or months when you go, go, go and find you have gone nowhere. That is frustrating. In our minds if we work harder, longer smarter then we will “go” places, get somewhere and do something right? Turns out it has only been a rat race and you are still on the wheel running like mad and getting nowhere. Do you feel like that?
In a book by Gregory A. Boyd titled Seeing is Believing: Experience Jesus though Imaginative Prayer a statement is made that our “flesh is founded on a lie that leads to performance...To the extent that our view of God and ourselves is distorted, we attempt to find life in what we do, whether this be secular or religious activities.” We see this in over commitment to activities at church which leads to burnout from the lie if I do this God will love me more or this will make me a better person or “I should.” In the end we still find ourselves tired and frustrated for the long awaited fulfillment is still nowhere to be seen and we are still on the wheel. We have just changed settings for the wheel moving from the “secular” to the sacred arena but still doing the same thing running as fast as we can looking to fulfill our need. We must have messed something! We did and we do!
In the familiar story of the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, we see the woman is occupied with her life in that community with the rat race she lives in everyday. She keeps doing the same thing getting the same results and getting nowhere. She is in the wheel going nowhere fast. Here is Jesus offering a way to get off and for much of the conversation she cannot see the exit out of the wheel. Later on in the book of John we see and hear Jesus declare to Israel this gift of “living water” on the closing day of their Feast of the Tabernacles. The IVP New Testament Commentaries for John 7:37-39 states:
On each day of the feast there was a procession of priests to the pool of Siloam to draw water (m. Sukka 4:9). The priests returned to the temple, where the water was taken in procession once around the altar with the choir chanting Psalms 113-118, and then the water was poured out as a libation at the morning sacrifice… This was a time of joy so great that it was said, "He that never has seen the joy of the Beth he-She'ubah [water-drawing] has never in his life seen joy" (m. Sukka 5:1; cf. Deut 16:14-15; Jubilees 16:20, 25). This joy was associated with Isaiah 12:3, "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." On the seventh day of the festival the priests processed around the altar with the water not once but seven times (Bloch 1980:200; cf. Beasley-Murray 1987:113 for a more detailed description).
At this high point of the festival Jesus dramatically cries out loudly (krazo, as in v. 28), If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink (v. 37).
Israel had fallen into the same pattern just a religious version of the lie. They kept doing the same thing as commanded getting the same results and going nowhere. They as a nation were on the wheel going nowhere fast. Here stands Jesus shouting where the exit is and how to go through it. So, the rat race continues for Israel and for you.
You have heard these claims of Jesus and living water. Maybe even tried them but got the same result. You found yourself doing the same thing getting the same result so it must not work or be real! To tell you the truth you are INSANE! Doing the same thing again and again expecting a different result is insane. That is not what Jesus is offering to you. Gregory A. Boyd writes “attempting to get free from the flesh by trying harder is like trying to get out of quicksand. The harder you struggle, the faster you sink. The only way to get free from the entrapment of the flesh is to give up and surrender to the Spirit. We need to learn how to rest in Christ.” Jesus said FOLLOW me, do what I do, say what I say. Rest in me.
Rest it sounds good better than rats!
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