Never have I been a good water-drinker. I am not a person who is thirsty by nature; so, if not careful, I will go long periods without drinking something.  My body has known a lot of dehydration over the years. Once while watching my son play baseball on a very hot summer day, I watched the entire game without drinking anything.  By the time I got to my car, I almost passed out. The problem was dehydrated living.

Recently, I have been determined to drink more water. Determination is wonderful, but it still requires follow through, which did not happen, so I continued to suffer from dehydrated living.

One day I discovered something called an infusion pitcher. The infusion pitcher takes plain old water and infuses it with flavors from fresh fruits and vegetables. After filling the pitcher with water, a cylinder is filled with fruits and/or vegetables and put into the core of the pitcher of water. The openings in the cylinder allow the fruit to change the taste of the water. Each new pitcher offers new taste and new refreshment. I now go looking for a drink of that water. The difference is the core.

So many people are dehydrated in life, and some of those people are believers, God’s people. One can get up every morning out of the same old bed, eat the same old breakfast, drive the same old route to work, do the same routine things, come home to make the same old dinner, watch the same old television and go back to the same old bed, wake up and do it again the next day.

When walking with God, it is so easy to get into a perfunctory relationship with Him. Read a chapter a day in the Bible, go to the same old church, listen to the same old pastor, sing with the same old worship team, go home and do it all over again. That is dehydrated Christian living. We have lost the core that flavors that walk and gives meaning to “taste of the Lord and see that He is good.”

At the core must be the presence of and reliance on the Holy Spirit. When I invite the Holy Spirit to be present with me as I read God’s word, as I worship, as I pray and I walk through life, it destroys spiritual dehydration. It is easy to jump right in without first inviting His presence. When the Holy Spirit is at the core, He will open heaven, and give victory from that which sucks the life out of us. The Holy Spirit will continuously pour into our lives “springs of living water.”  Our lives are only as effective as what is at the core. When the Holy Spirit and His fruit are at the core, the Word comes to life, worship is powerfully intimate, and we experience an overcoming life.

I have said goodbye to dehydrated living! How about you?

“For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.” – Isaiah 44:3-4

It has been twelve years since we lost our son Bryan. If I stop and think about that Saturday morning phone call, I can still feel the gut punch from the news, “Your son went into cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated.”  What? Did we hear that correctly? How can this thirty-seven-year-old man, husband, son, brother, and soon-to-be father be gone?

Gaylon and I had served God and been in ministry for more than forty years at that point in our lives. We had walked with God, and God had walked with us. Though that was the case, the next several months were dark and hard. Twelve years later we still miss our son, but the difficult days of heavy grief are fewer and far between. Notice, I did not say we never experience grief, but that the very heavy days are fewer and far between.

This past weekend, Gaylon and I attended the tenth annual Bryan Benton Memorial Golf Tournament in Hickory, North Carolina. I saw many of the young men and women that Bryan had gone to college with, played football with, been friends with. Many had been a part of Bryan’s wedding, and on the day of the tournament, there they stood with their own spouses and children. They showed up to honor a friend and colleague.

I stood there as opening remarks were given, and to my surprise, tears began to flow. Some of my tears were certainly from recalling my son and his life, but many were thanksgiving to God for life after deep grief. As I looked at Bryan’s son Tucker and his mother Sarah, I saw their laughter and joy. I rejoiced with them that their lives had been renewed and filled with happiness. I saw Bryan’s friends, who loved him deeply, and they had joyous lives.

We had all learned to live with grief but not die in grief.

Grief is a challenging thing, and there is no handbook or magical formula to say how long one will feel its heaviness. Grief is the painful, complex process of dealing with the losses we encounter. Maybe you have received devastating news, an unexpected diagnosis, or the dreaded phone call of a loved one that has died. It is easy to feel as if you will never breathe again.

Twelve years later, may I offer a little advice to help us with the journey of grief? This is not perfect advice, and it is not time-stamped as to how long these stages take. I do know that God wants to help us walk all the way through the valley of the shadow of death.

1. Feel what you feel. Even if you are a strong believer or Christian leader, grief is grief, and you do not have to pretend the sorrow is not there.
2. Cry as much as you wish. It is okay to cry and would be shocking if you did not cry in the midst of grief.
3. Let God bring you comfort. He will carry you – He will! Friends try their best to say or do the right thing, and sometimes that is helpful and other times it is not. As hard as it might be to do, sit down and ask the Holy Spirit to come and strengthen your hurting heart. I did this during the day and sometimes in the middle of the night. I cannot explain it, but there were times God showed up in the middle of those times and brought comfort. Cry out to Him and tell Him your heart is worn out and you feel like you cannot take another step.
4. When the time is right, start being around others. Don’t let yourself become isolated forever. This might feel difficult at first. Start with close friends going on a lunch date or meeting for coffee.
5. Accept the new normal. I do not have to like my new normal, but I have to come to terms with the fact that my family has a new normal. Part of my normal includes realizing that Bryan’s death is a marker in my journey of life. I might say, “That happened before Bryan died, or after Bryan died, we did so and so.”  During football season, we will sometimes say, “Bryan would have been so excited about this.”
6. Give yourself the freedom to laugh again and live again. Bryan died on February 11. For the next several months, when the eleventh of the month came, I would stop and say it is the eleventh of the month. Then one month, it was the fourteenth of the month, and I realized that I did not remember the eleventh of that month. At first, I felt guilt, then I realized that God was helping me to learn to live again. Life was emerging again.
7. Encourage others who are facing grief. (This part does not come quickly. It might take time, and that is okay.)  I do not have the right words for someone’s grief, but I can encourage them that I am praying for them and thinking of them. I occasionally contact those who are going through loss. I just want them to know that I am thinking of them and praying for them.

If you are grieving, and feel stuck, stop now, and pour out your heart to God. Ask Him for strength to take one step forward, and then take it. Then, take the next and the next and the next. Keep walking. God does give supernatural strength to press on. There is life after grief.

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” – Psalm 34:18; “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” – Psalm73:26.

Recently, I felt so surrounded by life. Do you know what I mean? When there seems to be pressure on every side? The feeling I had was like the timid kid on the playground who was surrounded by the meanest bullies around. That kid feels overwhelmed, afraid, and maybe helpless. There seems to be no way through the bullies.

As we deal with a season of spiritual warfare, especially when it is warfare over the ones we love so much, it can feel like being surrounded by bullies that are bigger than we are, stronger than we are, and smarter than we are. I have felt this way, haven’t you? I want to believe there is a strong lion inside of me, but at times it feels like a little kitten.

A great man of God named Elisha experienced this situation. The story is told in Second Kings chapter six beginning with verse eight. It is a remarkable story to read, giving us insight into the spiritual battles that we face. An enemy army surrounds Elisha and his servant. It is just the two of them being surrounded by an entire army. Surely, there is no way out. Elisha’s servant began to panic and said, “We are surrounded. There are two of us and an entire army circling us.” In other words, we do not have a chance!

Elisha was surrounded by the same army as the servant. He was in the same battle as the servant. BUT – Elisha knew a greater source than the source that was surrounding him. Elisha looked at the servant and said, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” I would love to get a look inside the brain of the servant. He must have thought, “Oh great! Not only am I surrounded by an army, but I am also in the middle of the circle with someone who is out of touch with reality!”

Then, Elisha prayed a marvelous prayer! “Oh Lord, please open his eyes that he can see.” Elisha did not belittle the servant who was facing a faith crisis. Elisha knew that only God could open the man’s eyes. The Bible tells us that the Lord opened his eyes, and the servant saw. Here is what he saw, “Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”  The servant got a vision of the unseen world which was much more powerful than the vision of the natural world. That glimpse into the spiritual realm changed EVERYTHING!

Elisha’s servant moved from natural thinking to supernatural thinking. In the supernatural realm, the servant’s fears were gone. He no longer thought it was two against an army. He realized the army of God was there to do battle with him.

This is the way we need to live on a day-by-day basis.

Some either do not acknowledge that there is a war between spiritual forces, or they are afraid to talk about it. There is an unseen world around us. Part of that unseen world is the army of evil that is trying to pull us away from God and cause us to walk hopeless and defeated. Today, God wants to remind us of the other army that is far more powerful than all that comes against us.

I highly encourage you to read this story today and the rest of the days this week. Let it lift your faith to see into the unseen world, the supernatural world.

Today, I pray that God will help us to see beyond what we see! Let us allow God to help us to live in light of the spiritual power He has placed within us! I had already prayed for situations that seemed insurmountable today. Now, I am stopping and saying, “Open my eyes to see into the heavenly realm, to see that those things that surround my life are surrounded by You!”

My four-year-old grandson stood in front of my chair just staring at me with a puzzled look. He was literally two feet from my face. He said nothing for a moment, so I asked, “Judah, are you okay?”

Judah looked at me and said, “Why is your face so red? It “wooks” kind of like a “cwown’ (clown).” I chuckled and said, “I have on something called blush. Do you think it’s too red?” Judah nodded his head.

I got up and looked into a mirror. Because the room was sunny and bright, I could see that indeed, my cheeks were a little too blushy. I proceeded to take a tissue and wipe off some of the blush. After a few strokes of the tissue, I asked Judah if it looked right now, and he answered me in the affirmative.

Earlier that morning, I had put on a little blush, but I did not turn on the lights. I thought I could see well enough in the natural light, but once the bright light shined on my face, I could see the correction that was needed. But I would never have looked at my face if someone who loved me had not pointed it out to me.

Who do you have in your life that you allow to correct you when something is off spiritually? Maybe even something you do not see in yourself.  Let’s face it: Accepting correction can be hard. It is easy to fall into thinking that we know best and that someone else does not have the right to tell us to change. Oftentimes, we interpret correction for judgment.

Hebrews 12:11 says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Proverbs 27:6 says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” I believe that a loving rebuke is one of the highest forms of love that one person can express to another.

It is painful to be corrected, and it is painful to be the one doing the correcting. As I look back through the years, I can pinpoint painful experiences when a friend or friends cared enough about me to wound me. I hate to think of where I might be today had they kissed-up to me rather than showing me things that were harming my growth in Christ and my efforts at ministry. I am a stronger person today because of these friends. These were friends that I knew loved me and cared about my walk with God, not someone I hardly knew who just did not like something about me.

When someone corrects you, or points out an area where you might need to grow, what is your first reaction? Let me guess. It is probably not, “Thanks, I was really hoping someone would point that out to me.”

We all have “blind spots”—negative parts of our life or character that we cannot see. Sometimes, we even know we are willfully walking in sin. We all need someone who loves us and will say, “You need to get this out of your life.” A true friend will love us enough to tell us the truth, even at the risk of hurting our feelings.

We all need at least one friend, a good, godly friend who inspires us to be more like Christ — a friend who is positive and encouraging, but painfully honest when needed. If you do not have a friend like this, ask God to help you find one. Such friends have been some of the greatest blessings in my Christian walk.

In Second Samuel chapter twelve, there is a story that illustrates the need to have someone who will speak the truth in love. It is the story of King David who lusted after a married woman named Bathsheba. When she became pregnant with his child, he had her husband killed and married her to cover up his sin. 

However, this sin was not hidden from God. Thus, the Lord sent Nathan to David with a message. 

Nathan told David a story of two men, a rich man, and a poor man. The rich man had a large number of sheep, while the poor man only had one little lamb that he loved dearly and treated like his own child. When a traveler came to the rich man, instead of slaughtering one of his own sheep, the rich man took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the traveler to eat.

David responded with great anger. “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity” (2 Samuel 12:5-6).

Nathan replied, “You are the man!”  David had everything, but still took another man’s wife. David had been described as a man after God’s heart, yet he needed a Nathan to say, “Look what is in your life.”

Nathan did not do this so he could let David have a piece of his mind. He did it for David to come back into alignment with God. David repented of this wrongdoing (which he writes of in Psalm 51).

Every one of us needs a Nathan. We get so used to our sins that often we have become blind to them, or sometimes simply enjoy having them around. We do not even notice them anymore. We all need bold, loving Christian friends who call us to repentance.

“Everybody Needs a Nathan!”  Who is yours?