Watch your water source
by Sonia Hulme
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May you rejoice in the wife of your youth … may her breasts satisfy you always, may you always be captivated by her love (Proverbs 5:18-20).
How do you feel, reading this verse? Do you wonder how on earth it got through the selection process for Bible verses and why it would be chosen for the reading for the day? Talk of breasts and bosoms indeed … I did not click on today’s devotion for this!
This chapter of Proverbs is certainly quite earthy in its language and pointed in its instruction to the young men it is addressing. In seeking to equip them to live well among the major temptation of their day, they are encouraged to seek sexual satisfaction in committed, faithful, respectful relationships. This is good advice for all of us. If you are married, guard and protect your relationship. Treasure it, relish it and work for its health, knowing that one day it will end.
If you are single, your relationships are very much God’s concern and under his care. His desire is for them to lead you towards a greater life and wholeness. Your sexuality and your closest relationships are of interest to him. Nothing is outside of God’s care and concern! If he is interested in your sexuality, then he is interested in every other area of your life. Your everyday life is all he has to work with; it’s where he wants to meet you. So, invite him into the brokenness and woundedness, where you may have been left hurt, lonely and afraid.
The young men who were the audience of Proverbs were tempted to look in unhealthy places to numb their pain, fill their loneliness and find satisfaction. So may we be. Earlier in the chapter, they are advised to ‘Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well’ (Proverbs 5:15). God was the ultimate source of their water of life, but they looked elsewhere. So do we. Where are you tempted to turn away from his offer of fresh flowing water and drink from a contaminated puddle? Your phone? Food? Social media? Your sexuality? When these intended good gifts from our Heavenly Father are used instead to numb our pain, they will never truly satisfy.
Lord, I confess the choices I make which do not lead me towards greater life, peace and wholeness with you. [Spend some time naming some struggles specific to you.] These are unsatisfying counterfeits, and I give them to you. Let all of my life come under your loving gaze as I walk into today as your loved and forgiven child.
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