At a women's retreat, one person was carrying a Bible and a bucket. It's easy to understand why she was carrying the Bible, but why the bucket? With a twinkle in her eye, she explained, "The bucket reminds me to draw all the living water I possibly can." Pointing to a crack in the bucket, she said, "Like me, my bucket leaks, reminding me to keep coming back to the Lord for more!"

Isaiah 12 is a hymn of praise to God, our source of living water--the water that forever quenches spiritual thirst (Jn. 4:14). The prophet said we could freely draw this water from God's "wells of salvation" (Isa. 12:3).

Believers of all generations can testify: "The Lord is my strength . . . [my] song . . . my salvation" (v.2). F. B. Meyer wrote, "The little possessive pronoun my is the bucket with which we draw water from the depths of God. Our pilgrimage way is lined by these wells of saving help."

Yet how often we seem oblivious to God's desire to provide for us! Nancy Spiegelberg has expressed her own unawareness of that lavish provision:

Lord, I crawled across the barrenness to You
    with my empty cup, uncertain in asking
    any small drop of refreshment.

If only I had known You better,
    I'd have come running with a bucket.
    © 1974 Nancy Spiegelberg

Today, assured of God's overflowing goodness, let's resolve to be "Bible and bucket" believers.  — Joanie Yoder