MY BEST WELLS
There are so many great people preaching the gospel online and elsewhere, we ask ourselves, “What’s best for me?” Last week I showed you in the Bible how familiar spirits can connect us to the wrong people. But today I want to show you how it’s the Holy Spirit that connects us to the right ones. Genesis 25:11 tells us Isaac was settled near Beer-Lahairoi (“the well of the Living One who sees me”). He raised his sons there and had a good life, but then “there was a famine in the land” (Gen. 26:1). And that was the beginning of his next journey.
No matter where we are on our spiritual journey, we all have felt the famine a time or two. It’s when we feel we lack something necessary for the abundant life God promises us in the Bible. We feel we don’t know enough about healing; we don’t have the skills to deliver people from demons; we don’t have the loving human relationship we seek. We’ve all been there. When famine hit Isaac, he knew he had to move. He trusted God. He needed to find a new well for his life. One of the keys to walking by the Spirit is trusting God, and not automatically going where others have gone.
When Isaac’s father, Abraham, was in famine, he went to Egypt, so Isaac would have thought to do the same. But God specifically told Isaac: “Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of” (Gen. 26:2).
We have Holy Spirit in us, and if we are willing to be led by God’s spirit, rather than our own will, He will show us where to go physically, like with Isaac, or in these days, in traversing the highways of the internet.
Isaac had a big need, but his journey with God was different from Abraham’s. When you listen to different Bible people on the internet, the Holy Spirit within you will resonate with what certain people are saying, and not resonate with others. We need to take a look to test it and catch it as quickly as we can, so we don’t waste time with preachers and teachers that are not part of our path right now.
God told Isaac to go to where the Philistines were, in Gerar, which was North, the opposite direction from Egypt, which was South. He went, and he prospered. “Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great: For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds and great store of husbandry: and the Philistines envied him: (Gen. 26:12-14).
Isaac prospered in Gerar, but now he was in another type of famine. The people around him were not favorably responding to him anymore. It became time for him to move on. He had a big need for water for all his responsibilities: the people and animals who relied on him. He tried to dig in the old wells, but “the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth” (v.15).
Then Isaac found what he thought was a great well of water. “And Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of springing water” (v. 19). “Springing water” is “living water.” Verse 20 says: “And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, ‘The water is ours.’” Isaac had to keep moving.
This part of the story is so amazing and pertinent. Isaac found living water, good water, and others said it was theirs. He called the well, “Esek,” because there was contention there. It wasn’t for him at this time. So he kept looking. He dug another well, and again, it wasn’t good for him. Then he dug another well, and the Philistines finally let him be. It was good for the time being, but the journey continued. Eventually, Isaac left the wells he dug for the Philistines, and he went East to Beersheba and dug a new well, where he stayed and prospered.
When we feel like we are in any kind of famine or lack in any matter of life, we need to keep moving until we find something that truly resonates with our Spirit, something that feels totally right. We check it out with God and test it. Then if it doesn’t really resonate in our heart, and if it’s not giving us the living water we need, we have to be willing to move on.
One of the great things about the story of Isaac and the Philistines is that after Isaac moved to his well in Beersheba, the Philistines came to him.
“And Isaac said unto them, ‘Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me and have sent me away from you?’ And they said, ‘We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us.’” (vv. 27-28). And he [Isaac] made then a feast, and they did eat and drink” (v. 30).
Walking by the spirit of God is a marvelous journey. Let’s be sensitive to where we are on the journey and sensitive to the urging to move on if need be. Let’s not criticize others on their journey or doubt our own. Instead of getting mad at others who aren’t on our same journey, let’s let God play it out and let’s be willing to feast with all the body of Christ in the end, (or along the journey, any time we can.)
Love, Carolyn
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Chapters include JEHOVAH-NISSI,
THE LORD OF SABAOTH STILL ROARS,
I KNOW THE BOSS,
SPEAKING FAITH,
GOD LIKES “TOO MUCH”
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