Yesterday my daughter and I got caught in one of those weird, Texas-style, torrential thunderstorms.  The skies opened just as we left the grocery store.  By the time I got her in the car and the groceries in the trunk, I was soaked to the bone.  I even had water dripping down my nose and into my ears.  The only thing I could do was laugh.  It’s a good thing we were going straight home from there!

Now that I’m warm and dry, I’ve started thinking about what it means to be drenched.  What, exactly, am I drenched in?  Yesterday I was drenched in rainwater.   It completely immersed me in wetness and damp.  I shivered and my hands turned white (thanks, Raynaud’s) on the drive home.  My thoughts revolved around “Get home. Get dry.  Get warm.”

Reading the headlines today, I see that oftentimes people in our society are drenched in other things:
…drenched in drugs (IOC strips Marion Jones of 5 Olympic medals for doping)
…drenched in violence (Triple car bombing rocks  Southern Iraq,  Six teenagers shot at Nevada school bus stop,  Hunt for Algeria blast survivors)
…drenched in sex (Six NJ state troopers accused of sexual assault, Boys, 11 and 14, charged with sexual assault on a woman)
…drenched in money worries (Fed plan sends Wall Street soaring, Sallie Mae slashes profit forecast, Treasury prices tumble)
…drenched in political verbal attacks and counter-attacks

What am I drenched in today?  I know what I WANT to be drenched in: God’s Word.  I want to know my Savior so well that his words become my words.  That my every reaction to life’s storms and battles and sweet sunsets and sunrises is based on Christ.  That I won’t fly off the handle when everything that can go wrong, goes wrong.  That I won’t lose faith when I am up against serious struggles.  That I will be wise when asked advice, that I will use my two ears more than my one mouth.  I want to be so immersed, so flooded with the joy of the Lord that I shine everywhere I go.

My grandmother is like that.  She has a simple faith and has simple needs, and the Lord provides for them all.  She is practical with a dose of sweet-natured Southern charm.  No one leaves her house without sampling a piece of peach pie.  All troubles are given over to God immediately, with a simple belief that He is sovereign.  His will, will be done.   She is drenched in Living Water.

John 4
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

As a Christian, I have this spring of water welling up inside me.  It doesn’t drown me, but it refreshes me…when I let it.  So today I turn my eyes away from the ugly world and fix them on He who provides constant refreshment: Christ.

For those of you who are Huckabee supporters or at least interested observers, don’t let yourselves be drenched in the headlines.  Now that he is ahead in the polls, the media and his rivals are doing all they can to cast him in a bad light.  The latest jab at him is his comment — taken out of context, meant to illustrate how little he knows about Mormonism — that “don’t Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers?”  In response, his campaign released this statement:

“In fact, the full context of the exchange makes it clear that Governor Huckabee was illustrating his unwillingness to answer questions about Mormonism and to avoid addressing theological questions during this campaign,”

It is dangerous to allow our minds to be drenched with what the media says is truth.  When we rely on soundbites to tell us about debates, or comments, or interviews instead of watching them or reading the transcripts ourselves, we are, in effect, allowing someone else to do our thinking for us.  As we are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:21:

21Test everything. Hold on to the good.

What are you “drenched in” today?