I’ve just returned from the coast of South Carolina, where the air temperatures mixed with the heat index made it feel like 110 degrees. Stiflingly hot temps in addition to sky-high dew points made you feel like you were maybe a little crazy to venture out from under the comfort of air conditioning. People flocked to the beaches and swimming pools, of course, but you couldn’t help but wonder how the outside workers would fare under such conditions.

Apparently the southeast isn’t the only part of the country suffering from such brutal heat. We watched a weather reporter on TV interviewing an emergency responder in Oklahoma, where they have had weeks and weeks of severe heat advisories. As the responder talked about how to avoid emergency runs to the hospital, I heard him mention the basics, like wearing light clothing, covering your head with some kind of hat, avoiding excessive exertion (apparently some people try to jog in such weather!) and most importantly, drinking lots of water. Dehydration can be one of the most serious effects of heat on the human body. His suggestion was to “pre-hydrate,” that is, drink more water than you need ahead of time to minimize the dangers of becoming dehydrated. In other words, plan ahead for problems.

As I considered the wisdom of his advice, I thought about the spiritual implications of this analogy. Before we face spiritual dangers, we need to be “topped up” with God’s living water so we can stay strong in the midst of the challenge. To call on God for help when we are in the midst of the challenge is risky, simply because we don’t know how the crisis will affect us. We may be so traumatized by it that we find it hard to pray and believe that He will hear us. We may be so weak in our faith that the last thing we want to do is stop and pray, read His Word, worship, and seek counsel from a topped-up fellow Christian, who can give perspective to our situation and encourage us.

Jesus told us that “in this world you will have trouble” – He didn’t seem to make any exceptions to this statement of fact. All of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, will face times of testing, trial, and tribulation. We will come face-to-face with things unpleasant, uncomfortable, and at times, downright scary too. But in this verse Jesus also states a tremendous promise for those who know Him. It is such a wonderful truth that He tells us to “Be of good cheer” and (in another version) “Take heart.” Why? “Because I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33)

Those who belong to Jesus Christ have tremendous spiritual resources the world doesn’t have access to – most importantly, the promise of His presence with us in every circumstance of life. This should give us courage and strengthen us for whatever challenge we will have to face. But the key to appropriating His promises is to meditate on them and build up our faith in Him before we are in the thick of the emotions that always accompany difficulties.

When trouble arrives we need to already know the promises of Scripture and be confident of God’s love for us. We need to know – through experience – that He will not let us down. This is how King David was able to face the incredible times of persecution, physical danger, betrayals, enemy attacks, and family challenges he faced, both before and after he became king of Israel. Way back in his youth, when he was still living an obscure life tending sheep for his father, David meditated on the promises of God. He spent time with Him, memorizing His Word (the longest psalm talks about the beauty and wisdom of God’s Word), writing songs, and praying. His intimacy with God was well established long before he was anointed by Samuel.

Through putting his faith on the line, David found out that he could slay a lion to protect his sheep and could bring down a giant with a slingshot. David put his faith in God in action, and over time he was confident that God would be his help in every situation he faced. But the key to his spiritual success was this: he pre-hydrated. He sought God’s face because he loved Him and wanted to know Him better, not because He was David’s ticket to success. Oh that I might follow his example!

Out of his experience with God, David could confidently assure the Israelites they did not have to depend upon their own resources and strength. They had One who was looking after them, whose name was Almighty God. He would faithfully deliver them as they trusted in Him. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. [That’s us! The redeemed of the Lord, the body of Christ!] God is with her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. The God of Jacob is our fortress” (Psalm 46:1-2,4-5, 7).

This is a tremendous truth for us to meditate on every day. God is with us! God is in us! God is for us! He will be our fortress in the time of trouble! Knowing this will act as a refreshing stream, a life-giving source of strength, when we experience doubt, pain, persecution, sorrow, fear, resentment, and anything else that may appear in the midst of our difficulty. It’s interesting that the psalmist says a river would “make glad” the people of God.

Jesus picks up this theme in John 7, declaring: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (vs. 38). “By this,” John points out in the next verse, “he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” Rivers of living water are always available to us. If we will drink of them freely and on a regular basis, we can avoid spiritual dehydration.

None of us would start off on a long journey without filling our car’s tank up with gas. And yet we seem to think that if things are going well at the moment, we don’t necessarily need to seek God’s face. We view spending time with Him as a bonus – something we enjoy, but if we are busy we can forego in the interest of attending to more important matters. In good times, we begin to think that we can handle life in our own strength. So we invest in the things that make us feel personally strong and secure: our education, our finances, our jobs, our social connections.

While these pursuits aren’t sinful, they can be detrimental if we let them become the focus of our lives. They will not hydrate our spirits. And the tragedy is that if we’re not living out of God’s resources every day, we are likely to respond to troubles in the same way that our worldly counterparts do.

Instead of facing our difficulties with courage and faith in God, we worry and fret and grumble and become angry, asking “Why has God allowed this to happen?” We begin to grasp at worldly resources instead of God’s, cutting ourselves off from the tremendous resources available to us in the Holy Spirit. And as our unsaved family members, friends, and neighbors watch us, they are quick to conclude that our faith in God makes no real difference in our life. We’re just like them.

Pre-hydrating just makes sense, both in the natural world and in the spiritual. Having what we need in times of crisis requires planning ahead for the possibility of danger by investing our time in the basics of survival. If something is vital to our survival – and we all know that water is – we need to make it a priority, not just assume we’ll be okay.

Water has other benefits besides guarding us from dehydration. It keeps our skin soft, our lungs moisturized, our kidneys functioning well. It regulates our metabolism, helps our organs absorb nutrients better, protects our joints, and even helps prevent constipation (can you think of some good spiritual applications for this one?). If we’re well hydrated we think better, have more energy, and (as I found out firsthand recently) have less trouble giving blood to the med techs who want to run their tests. I’m sure there are many more benefits I haven’t mentioned.

Dehydration is serious. In the natural, it puts our lives at risk and often requires the intervention of medical help to pull us out of the decline. In the spiritual realm, the effects can be just as damaging to our spirits and our faith in God. So it’s important to pay attention to the basics and seek God’s face very day. As the old hymn put it, “Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord; abide in Him always and feed on His Word. Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak, forgetting in nothing, His blessing to seek. Take time to be holy, the world rushes on; spend much time in secret with Jesus alone – by looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be; thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.”

His living water not only preserves us but also enables us to be a source of blessing to others. We can be a refuge and strength for those who don’t know Him. We have something they don’t have! Next time we face trouble, let’s demonstrate God’s peace, not our anxiety. Someone may be watching to see if our faith really makes a difference where the rubber meets the road. If we aren’t “made glad” by His rivers of living water, maybe it’s time we learned how to pre-hydrate.

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“Made Me Glad”

I will bless the Lord forever; I will trust Him at all times.

He has delivered me from all fear; He has set my feet upon a rock.

And I will not be moved, and I’ll say of the Lord:

You are my shield, my strength, my portion, Deliverer;

My shelter, strong tower, my very present help in time of need.

Whom have I in heaven but you? There’s none I desire beside you.

You have made me glad and I’ll say of the Lord:

You are my shield, my strength, my portion, Deliverer;

My shelter, strong tower, my very present help in time of need.

Lyrics by Hillsong Australia, recorded on the album Blessed, 2002