As they make music they will sing, “All my fountains are in you.” (Psalm 87:7, NIV)
The drive from Central California across the coastal hills to where golf is played at storied places like Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, and the Olympic Club, has been tan and dry for too many years. This year, though, thanks to the return of the rains, we’re seeing the traditional seasonal green grasses under the stately oaks, and there is storm water running off into the lakes and reservoirs.
It’s a blessing, you know, to see the signs of life that come from water. We’ll need more rain in the years to come to recapture the storage that has been lost, but even now we can be grateful for the verdancy today and the fruitfulness that will follow in the months ahead.
From the literal, psalmists and psalm readers alike can draw figures that slake our thirsty souls.It may never have occurred to you that what the Israelites called “the Promised Land” was, and remains, very much a desert. This is especially true between the end of the rains in March and the harvests of early fall. The land grows parched, and when this happens, so can the people.
For this reason, both rain and dew are celebrated as great blessings. In the rainless months, dew can be heavy, thanks to the influence of moisture off the Mediterranean Sea. This dew can keep grazing land healthy enough for the animals that need the grasses. For man and beast, there is life in water.
In Psalm 87, the psalmists say of Zion, the city of God, “All my fountains are in you.” But the words were not meant to be theirs alone. They were applying this rejoicing to the lips of all the people making music in that city, singing of the salvation granted them by God.
It’s a worthy picture all around, for it is depictive as well of the life we have in Jesus. The old commentator Matthew Henry wrote of this passage: “Christ is the true temple; all our springs are in him, and from him all our streams flow.”
Water literally brings life. We would not survive without its refreshed supply for growing the food we eat, nor without its direct supply to our flesh.
But from the literal, psalmists and psalm readers alike can also draw figures that slake our thirsty souls. Ready to play in a fountain, that grand symbol of abundant water? Then let it be a fountain of the Lord, the giver of abundant life!
—
Jeff Hopper
May 10, 2016
Copyright 2016 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.