This summer I spent a month taking a 5,000 mile road trip!

As I drove alone for 5,000 miles, a number of ideas popped into my head. Now that I’m back home in San Jose, I’m turning them into blogs.

As I crossed Montana and Idaho, light showers fell sporadically across the Pacific Northwest.

There wasn’t enough rain to put out the wildfires. But there was enough rain to cleanse the air of smoke.

No more smoke from distant fires. No more sneezing. No more coughing. (see my blog “Smoke from Distant Fires”).

Still, the threat of wildfires was everywhere.

I was shocked by two types of warning signs. In my whole life, I had never seen such signs posted in the East. Not even in the worst droughts.

But now these warning signs flashed repeatedly along the Interstate:

     —Secure towing chains [to prevent sparks]!

     —Don’t run car in grass!

Under such extreme fire risks, I welcomed the slightly cooler temperature, higher humidity, and sporadic showers.

Nevertheless, these sporadic showers seemed to fall far short of being enough “rain and snow com[ing] down from heaven . . . [to] make the earth bud and flourish”. (Isaiah 55:10).

These showers seemed to be a mere “trickle” of water falling far short of being enough “words from the mouth of the LORD” to empower us to “go out in joy and be led forth in peace.” (Isaiah 55:11-12).

That moment of euphoria didn’t come until hundreds of miles further west.

At that point, the Interstate descended steeply to cross the Columbia River. Suddenly, I saw the frolicking waters of the river spreading out below me—beautiful and majestic. I drove across it, seeing the wild waters beneath me.

I realized that this mighty river was the ultimate effect of those sporadic showers that had seemed so impotent.

I thought how, once again, the power of the Spirit of the LORD was “hiding in plain sight” until—in God’s good time and in God’s good way—it burst forth for all to see. Powerful! Irresistible! (see my blogs “Hiding in Plain Sight” and “Irresistible Hurricanes of the Holy Spirit”).

The very first Psalm warns that the wicked are like chaff that the wind blows away. In contrast, anyone “whose delight is in the law of the LORD and who meditates on his law day and night . . . is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.” (Psalm 1:1-6).

The Prophet Ezekiel envisioned these individual streams of water growing into a mighty river.

The river that the Prophet Ezekiel envisioned began as water merely “trickling” from the Temple in Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 47:1-2).

This trickling water was much like the light, sporadic showers that I had passed through. At first, they looked insignificant. But they grew into an irresistible power—the Power of the LORD God.

In Ezekiel’s vision, after the trickling traveled from the Temple a thousand cubits (about a third of a mile), it became a stream that was ankle-deep. After traveling another thousand cubits, the stream became knee-deep. After another thousand cubits, the stream became a river that was waist-deep. After another thousand cubits, the river became so deep that no one could walk across it—they’d have to swim! (Ezekiel 47:3-5).

Ezekiel envisioned that “a great number of trees” were on each side of the river. Eventually, the river emptied into the Dead Sea, turning it into fresh water, teeming with abundant life. (Ezekiel 47:7-11; John 10:10).

In Ezekiel’s vision—as in the First Psalm—the leaves of the fruit trees “will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47:12).

This is the River of Living Water—the River of the Spirit of the LORD—that Jesus promised us.

By promising us this River, Jesus was fulfilling the promise of the Law of Moses to give “streams of water” to those whose delight is in the ideals of the Law and who meditate on the ideals of the Law day and night. (Psalm 1:1-6: Matthew 5:17).

By promising us this River, Jesus was fulfilling the promise of the Prophets that the ideals of the Law and of the Prophets will become a river that brings life and healing. (Ezekiel 47:6-12; Matthew 5:17).

Jesus made us this promise while he was in Jerusalem at the Temple for the Festival of Booths.

As you may know, the Festival of Booths is sometimes called the Festival of Tabernacles because—like the Tabernacle that housed the Ark of the Covenant when Israel was traveling from Mount Sinai to the Promised Land—the “tabernacles” that the Israelites lived in were temporary structures (“booths”). They could quickly be taken down, carried, and re-assembled at the new place where Israel camped.

Israel was traveling through the wilderness—a dry, desert-like area much like the American Southwest. And much liked the drought-stricken lands I drove through!

The purpose of the Festival of Booths is to commemorate God’s faithfulness during those 40 years of living in a dry and thirsty land.

And, of course, a key reason that Israel survived to reach the Promised Land was that God gave them water in the wilderness. The most notable examples were cleansing bitter water and providing water that flowed from rocks. (Exodus15:22-25; Exodus 17:1-7).

The crowds gathered in the Temple would have been well-versed in these teachings about how God saves his people by faithfully giving them water.

Jesus chose the perfect time and place for confirming that—as he had told the Samaritan Woman at the Well—the “living water” that Jesus gives people “will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 7:10,14). (see my blog “Places of Worship—Spirit and Truth”).

And so:

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood [up in the Temple] and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, . . . rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this [Jesus] meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. (John 7:37-39).

The Apostle John envisioned a similar River of Living Water—the River of the Spirit of the LORD—arising in the new Jerusalem that came down from heaven. In this new Jerusalem. there was no temple “because the LORD God Almighty and [Jesus] are its temple.” (Revelation 21:1-2,22).

In this new Jerusalem that John envisioned, an angel showed him:

the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of [Jesus] down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2).

This River of Life—this River of the Spirit of the LORD—“will accomplish what [the LORD] desires and achieve the purpose [for which the LORD] sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

And that is why we “will go out in joy and be led forth in peace, the mountains and hills will burst into song before [us], and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12).

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For additional thoughts arising from my 5,000 mile road trip in my car nicknamed White Lightning, please read my blogs “Lightning from East to West”, “Directions Along the Way”, “Delays Along the Way”, “Dangers Along the Way—Narrow Roads”, “Dangers Along the Way—Heavy Traffic”, “Hiding in Plain Sight”, “Smoke from Distant Fires”, “Camouflaging Hideous Death with Fake Life”, and “Dry Lightning”.

As you may know, (and as Moses surely learned during his years in exile caring for sheep in the wilderness), there are ways to make bitter water suitable for drinking and to smash open rocks that cover aquifers that are full of water.