Pointless Pipes (Ps. 139:23-24)

As a farmer, my husband relied heavily on irrigation for the crops he was responsible for growing in the warm heat of the Deep South. The pipes would be laid across a large field that needed irrigating and would connect eventually with the source of water. The pump would then pull the water from the source and deliver the water to the field where the irrigation system would spread the water to the thirsty plants. Now, mind you, my explanation of how this works is simplistic, so here’s my disclaimer: I am only the wife of a man who understands the concept and applied it often, waking me up at all hours of the night to go turn it on or off before technology caught up with the need of farmers (and their tired wives) to sleep and do other things beyond irrigating crops . . .

Anyway. 

I thought of all this today as I read a prayer from The Valley of Vision called “Self-Knowledge” that begins with “Searcher of hearts, it is a good day to me when thou givest me a glimpse of myself” (p. 69). The speaker goes on to talk of the ways he sins and the judgment that comes with thinking his sins are small or unimportant, of his tendency to measure himself based on others, of not even recognizing a thing is evil or his intentions less than right or good. Then the speaker asks for grace to recall his own needs, particularly for the lacks.

We all have them. Lacks. They sneak up on us and overwhelm us in their ferocity because we are so reluctant to truly do as this prayer says and examine ourselves for the purpose of truly knowing who we are, what we believe, how we act, where our tendencies to sin lie, where our unconfessed sin resides. Self-examination is uncomfortable at best, a wrecking of all we are at the other end of best. There really isn’t a worst when examining ourselves in this way, at least not from God’s context when we are asking Him to search us, know our hearts. Our thoughts tried by the One no part of ourselves is truly ever hidden from. But there’s the next request that is found in the prayer of Psalm 139:23-24: “And see if there be any wicked way in me.”

There is. Wickedness. IN me. It needs to be rooted out often. Personally, I find that the rooting gets done mostly during the long watches of the night when I’d rather be sleeping, resting, relaxing. I get still. I get quiet. I yawn thinking blissful sleep is nigh, and then my thoughts begin racing like they are competing for a top starting position in a NASCAR race. The similarity to a race doesn’t end there though. The thoughts, like the cars, go around and around and around, seemingly going nowhere but doing so quickly without a resolution for hours at a time. Often there are crashes involved, too, messy ones that are replayed over and over again while my heart and mind and spirit work together to make sense of what God wants me to see with the help of the Holy Spirit He has placed within me--the Helper, the Comforter. I need all the help I can get. Owning sin isn't easy. Fixing it is without me. That's why I need Jesus desperately. It's the knowing it sometimes that escapes me when I am fixated on myself.

The speaker of “Self-Knowledge” presents his own areas of lack in his prayer: lack of knowing God’s will in the Scriptures, lack of wisdom that could be used to guide others, lack of daily repentance that keeps him far from God, lack of a spirit that wants to pray, lack of speaking words without love, lack of zeal for God’s glory and a selfish ambition for his own, lack of joy in God and His will, lack of love for others. And then he ends like this, “And let me not lay my pipe too short of the fountain, never touching the eternal spring, never drawing down water from above,” which is the point of this post. We need connecting to the source of the water for our souls, which need irrigating. 

As I read the prayer early and then pondered off and on all morning on it, I texted my husband and asked if he had a picture that would fit this post I had in mind to write. He patiently sent me picture after picture of irrigation pipes and even pipes that extended to the water and in the water, but they weren't what I had in mind, and I finally told him I wasn’t explaining well what I wanted, a pipe at the water but not in it. The following was his priceless reply as I continued to try to explain what I wanted before just telling him not to worry about it [typo it's . . . ]: 

He said it very well. It would be pointless to put a pipe in a place that didn’t have adequate water or even to put a pipe there and then have it end short of the water source. That was my point exactly. How silly are we to have the source of water, the fountain, the Living Water, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and lay our “pipes too short of the fountain, never touching the eternal spring, never drawing down water from above” that is at our disposal at God’s mercy and His provision. 

My self-examination today made me ask how often I am pointlessly praying for living water and needing God’s grace and touch on my life when I am simply lacking. Lacking  because of something I have failed to do, failed to examine my own soul, to confess what I find within it;  failed to read, failed to love, failed to follow through, failed to examine, just failed  . . .  How pointless to have it there and not drink of the pipe laid at the fountain when springs of Living Water and a well that won't run dry are at my disposal.