Lent 3a - conclusion

I’ve got a new app for my 4G Android phone. It’s called RunKeeper and it does what its name implies. I’ve used it three times in the last four days and have already surpassed my goal of beating my best 5K time of 26:04. It’s all because a lovely young woman (at least I think of her in those terms) speaks to me through my headphones at set intervals telling me distance run, time and average pace. Of course I still have to do the running but without Ms. RunKeeper I tend to fall off my pace.  Now all I need is for lovely younger than me Lisa to get up early and be waiting with water at the 2 mile mark.  The children of Israel have fallen off their pace, forgetting the good things the Lord has done and complaining make life difficult for Moses and God. You’d hope the water gushing from the rock might revive them like a water station but centuries later the psalmist speaking for God warns the people of his day not to make the same mistake as their ancestors in the wilderness. The apostle Paul, running his race with perseverance, enduring suffering, building character hopes in the Lord who ran the race ahead of us, for us. And the woman at the well refreshed, renewed, recreated by the encounter with living water surpasses all she could ever hope or dream and like a person with a new app can’t help but share it with everyone.