29. Word as Water
© Daniel Yordy – 2020
What are we doing? That is, why are we engaging in this expanded and somewhat unusual study of all the nuances of Word?
John said first that “God is Word,” and then he followed with “God is Spirit.”
We understand that the two are always together; there cannot be any word that does not come by spirit, whether the Spirit of God or a spirit of unbelief. And there cannot be any spirit that does not carry in it a full measure of word, whether Word that is Jesus our only life or word that is our fantasy of self-exaltation.
Then we have considered two lines over and over. And I will never tire of placing these two lines in front of our eyes that we might see where they go next.
The first line is “sustaining all things by His Word of power,” or more completely, “bringing forth, sustaining, and carrying all by His Word of power.”
And so this line in Hebrews 1 has sat there on the page for centuries, and yet it has no place in any Christian definition of Jesus, of the human, or of the world around us.
But a word like this cannot be except it be all. Either this line IS the definition of everything that exists, not only in heaven and earth, but in God and in us, or God does not exist.
The second line is from David, from Psalm 40 and 139; let’s merge two passages together into a simple paraphrase. – God, Your thoughts concerning me, words inside of You that will become me, are of an infinite number. I am fully formed in Your sight, even before I became. Your Words regarding me are like an embryo out from which the days of my life flow.
And from these two lines that are absolute and that rule all things that exist, we KNOW that everything exists first inside God’s Pro-Knowing, His “book,” as His thoughts in the form of words that are not yet spoken. Then, we include John 1, that through Jesus all things become, to know that it is Jesus who actively speaks us and our circumstances into becoming in every present moment.
Then we consider that small portion of creation that we study in school, biology, chemistry, physics, anatomy, geography, cosmology, psychology, history, mathematics, language, literature, etc. And in every one of those hundreds of courses we might take we are given a textbook filled with words describing that one small aspect of creation.
Yet the words in the textbook give only one view of the thing we are studying.
Here’s what I’m saying. The creation coming out from Words is so intricate and so complex and so filled with variation and nuance and shadow of light and dark and sounds and flowing and movement and color and aroma. Just think of the study of aromas or of one part of sounds, music.
EVERYTHING is found first inside of God as words that are part of God Himself; everything becomes what it is in every nuance of its expression by those same words being spoken by Jesus.
This is the testimony of Scripture, if we will believe.
Then we see that Paul uses water as a primary metaphor of Word – “the washing of the water of the Word.” But that is only one function of water. When we look from Genesis to Revelation, we see water all the way through as a metaphor of God, of Spirit, of Jesus, of Word, and, finally, of ourselves – the water of LIFE.
Word is so intricate and so vast and so Personal and so close, our very heart and soul, that if God gave us a hundred new ways to understand words every day forever, we would never come to an end of the expression and beauty of Word.
Let’s return to our study.
Water is many things. Everything water is comes out from the nature and being of God, and everything water is shows us the purpose and function of much Word inside God’s being that comes into our lives through the speaking of Jesus.
But what is our purpose in studying word as water?
Our first purpose is to KNOW the heart-gut thinking of God, our second purpose is to know the heart-gut thinking of this one individual created in the likeness of God, and our third purpose is to know how to weave these two together.
Understanding Water
Water in nature and the Bible is many things. In fact, we find that each of the different forms of water carry a different meaning. There is the water that quenches thirst and the water of springs of life. There is the water of washing and purification. Water can be judgment as the floods that bring down a house. There is the water of tears, representing our sorrow, something of great value to God. Rain represents the blessings of heaven (and is also an aspect of word as air), and rivers represent the outflow of life (or of death). We are even “saved” by the waters of immersion, that is, we are made whole by the knowledge of our immersion into Christ our only life.
We are familiar with the primary line in Scripture concerning water, though we understand it very little. Water is what we drink, and water is the outflow of rivers.
“If anyone thirsts, let him come towards Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Rivers of living water will overflow out of his belly.’”
We are told that our bodies are 80% water, that’s why we drink a lot every day. We can think of Jesus as Word in a similar way. In fact, we won’t say (in our use of the metaphor) that we are made up 100% by Jesus, but 80%, merged together with our own story of words at 20%. (And we are not trying to claim an exact science, we just want to understand). This view, then, allows for full symmorphy between Jesus and us, two stories, woven together as one.
Nonetheless, it is clear that Jesus as Word is the larger part of this relationship, and so we drink Him into ourselves daily.
I spent so much of my childhood and youth swimming in the river. Rivers flowing out are rivers in which to swim. And this river flowing out of us is life and healing and joy. Everything is healed wherever the rivers flow.
The rivers themselves are Spirit, but Spirit filled with words and coming out from the source of Words, Jesus in our hearts.
The next period of my life story for me to share is the season of healing, a season that continues until now in its gentle outflow. Yet the beginning of that season was all turbulence and swirling water and buffeting and banging against the rocks.
Water, however, is the most changeable of the elements. Air never changes. Earth and fire can each be found in two forms only. Water is found in three different forms, solid, liquid, and vapor, part of earth, water as itself, and part of air. And the thing that makes the difference for water is the presence or absence of fire.
We’re just musing, but in our musing, we are thinking of Jesus as Spirit Word.
Water in Nature
Chemically, water is H2O, two small hydrogen atoms connected to a much larger oxygen atom. Interestingly, oxygen by itself is part of air, that part that we breathe into ourselves for life. And hydrogen atoms are fire, in fact, we breathe oxygen so that the hydrogen in our bodies will have what it needs to burn, that is, to be fire. Separately, oxygen and hydrogen, coming together without bonding, provide for a great explosion of fire. But bound together, they are water that puts out fire.
Technically, “Do not quench the Holy Spirit” means do not pour water on the fire to put it out.
Let’s bring in the dictionary definition of water to find some useful things. I will reduce definition 1 from Webster’s 1926 just a bit.
Water: The fluid which descends from the clouds in rain and which forms rivers, lakes, seas, etc. Pure water consists of oxygen and hydrogen, and is an odorless, tasteless, transparent liquid. It has a slight blue color which is observable only in thick layers of the liquid. It freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. Pure water is an extremely pour conductor of the electric current. Water is the most important of solvents, dissolving many gasses, liquids, and solids. Natural waters of the earth, as those of springs, rivers, or the ocean contain more or less dissolved matter, which is removed by distillation. Rainwater is nearly pure. Water is essential to the life of animals and plants.
One aspect of water that is not included here is that, as a carrier of electrical frequency, the frequency of water is highly adaptable to the frequencies of any substance with which it interacts. That is, the frequency of water will change significantly, taking on itself the frequencies of any other substance with which it comes in contact. Frequencies can also be added to water by electrical devices. Then, water will carry this adopted frequency until it is affected by a different frequency. Even if all the molecules of a substance are removed from the water, it will continue in the frequency of that substance and will affect things around it by that adopted frequency. It is this homeopathic quality of water that is referred to as water “having memory.”
This quality of adapting different frequencies mean that water can cause sickness and that water can heal. The frequencies it has adopted will affect the human body in a similar manner as the original substance. This is standard science in natural health; it is derided by pharmaceutical medicine because it is not excessively profitable. Nonetheless, the healing qualities that water possesses are well-established and are reflected in the role of water as a metaphor in the Bible.
I grew up in Oregon where it rains much of the time and water is everywhere, where everything is green of every shade and hue, trees grow very large, and gardens produce wonderful abundance. Then, when I was 21, I moved to the high plains of New Mexico where there was no water. We did not even have a well, but obtained our water from a neighbor seven miles away. We watered our garden by hand. Everything was brown and barren. I wept over the absence of water and would have given much for a single hose that ran all the time. I would have watered everything.
Water is life; and I would never choose to live where there is not abundant water.
Water in the Bible
Let’s look again at the primary text using water as a metaphor.
“If anyone thirsts, let him come towards Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Rivers of living water will overflow out of his belly.’” Moreover, this He said concerning the Spirit, who those having believed into Him were about to receive; indeed, the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Water is primarily a metaphor of spirit, and specifically, of the Spirit of God. Yet water is also a metaphor of word. And, of course, we can never separate Spirit from Word, and so water must be the drinking in and the flowing out of the two together.
Shortly before this, Jesus had said that we are to drink His blood, and we know that blood means His life. Blood is mostly water, yet the blood cells flowing in that “water” are what make it alive. Then we see that it is living water, water that is also alive, flowing out of us.
Yet this water flowing out is also called the water or river of life. – And he showed me a river of water of life, shining as crystal, flowing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street and of the river, on this side and on that side, was the tree of life… (Revelation 22:1-2).
We have successfully defined many things over time. But there are two things we have never defined successfully, regardless of how we have circled around them. Those two words are spirit and life. I would be comfortable hammering out a reasonable definition of what we mean when we say “God,” but not so much when we say “Spirit” or “Life.”
It is the Spirit that gives life. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63).
Yet we know that God fills the Bible with references to water in order, somehow, to impart to us what He means by those two words.
We know what it means to be thirsty and what it means to drink down a glass of cold water on a hot and dry day. We know what it means to water our gardens and how plants thrive and grow when they have just the right amount of water. And in all of these things, God is conveying to us a beginning understanding of what He means by Spirit and by Life.
Water is a large factor in Genesis 1 and 2, in the setting forth of creation. In fact, the river of Eden flowing out from the tree of life or from the tree of death, shows us the homeopathic quality of water, that it will take into itself whatever frequency Adam chooses, whether the frequencies of the Spirit of God flowing out as life or the frequencies of demons flowing out as death.
And thus we see that it is the homeopathic quality of water, that it takes into itself the frequencies of whatever it comes in contact with, carrying those frequencies out to all, that is the primary meaning of God for water, and thus for Spirit and for Life.
When we place ourselves in tune with the good speaking of Jesus, Christ as Word made personal as us by the Spirit of God, then we begin to harmonize with the frequencies of that Word and that Spirit. But when we place ourselves in tune with the accusations of the evil one, as words of cursing flitting through our minds, then we begin to harmonize with the frequencies of death.
Last night I had an unsavory dream of a sexual nature. When I awoke, I could sense the frequencies of uncleanness inside my soul. I said, with all certainty, “Jesus, You are my righteousness; You are all there is in me.” And the frequencies of uncleanness vanished as if they never were. I did not know them; I did not harmonize with them or regard them as “mine.”
We are part of Christ IF we are confident that we are part of Christ (Hebrews 3:14). And we realize that God is speaking here of the homeopathic qualities of water, of Spirit and of Life.
This is pretty cool.
So, let’s bring in just a few references of water. We are looking for those primary words referencing Spirit and Life. There are many good verses, these are representative.
Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb; when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel (Exodus 17:6).
You are to make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. Set it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water into it, with which Aaron and his sons are to wash their hands and feet. …they must wash with water so that they will not die (Exodus 30:18-20).
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills; He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land (Deuteronomy 8:7).
So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored and became like that of a little child, and he was clean.… (2 Kings 5:10).
There is a river whose streams delight the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells (Psalm 46:4). This is a worship song that Sister Ethelwyn Davison often led us in singing. It still goes all through me as I think of it now.
O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water (Psalm 63:1).
The LORD will record in the register of the peoples: “This one was born in Zion.” Selah Singers and pipers will say: “All my springs of joy are in You.” (Psalm 87:6-7). This is another song we often sang, also led by Sister Ethelwyn.
The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook (Proverbs 18:4). This is interesting that Solomon connects words with water drawn from the depths and water flowing out.
For the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the springs of salvation (Isaiah 12:3). Again, another song we sang, again often led by Sister Ethelwyn. I have received so much treasure from so many.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return without watering the earth, making it bud and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat, so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and it will prosper where I send it (Isaiah 55:8-11). Again, water carrying Word and water as word, yet also as the springing forth of life.
Wherever the river flows, everything will flourish (Ezekiel 47) – referencing the river of life flowing out.
But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24). This was part of a beautiful song written and led by Dan Ricciardelli.
No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5).
Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to age-unfolding life (John 4:14).
He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet… “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me” (John 13:5-).
John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5).
Just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a glorious church… (Ephesians 5:25-26).
Let us approach [everything inside the Holiest] with a true heart, in full assurance of faith; having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil consciousness; and having our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22).
So we see that two of the ten ruling verses use water, water flowing out as life, giving life to all, and water that cleanses and makes pure.
Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, this should not be! Can both fresh water and bitter water flow from the same spring? (James 3:11). This is an important reference, because James is referring to the same thing as the river flowing out from Eden, can death and life be in the same river? Yet he is calling the words that we speak this same water flowing out. In fact, this is the clearest Scripture showing us this truth that I often set out.
His voice was like the roar of many waters (Revelation 1:15).
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let the one who hears say, “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely (Revelation 22:17).
Allow these verses to give us a sense of the larger meanings of God’s metaphor of water.
Water in Shadowfell
Next, we look at how Juliette Marillier presented the qualities of water. I use her examples because she causes us to think about many things real concerning this all-pervasive quality we know so well.
The second guardian Neryn seeks out to teach her, and the one, actually, who teaches her the most, is the Guardian of Water, called “The Hag,” a woman of great power and wisdom, who is not unkind, but does not coddle or accept foolishness. She is accompanied by a seal-like man-creature who is always kind. For that reason, she can be stricter, knowing that “Himself,” as he is called, will show that other side of her own heart. The Guardian of Water is not cruel, but she teaches Neryn how to be calm in a cruel world, and thus her training sometimes appears to be cruel.
First, the Hag tells Neryn that a caller is one who “changes the pattern of things.” “All is change. Do not regret. Instead learn.” (These quotes are all from Raven’s Flight, the second book of three, by Juliette Marillier.)
“Water is all change, from the icicles that frosted the eaves to the boiling pot on the fire, from the bog that sucked down the unwary traveler to the tear on a baby’s cheek. From this heaving ocean swell to the mysterious still pond above (the waterfall).
Water is “the decision to be fluid; to let what would happen, happen. – to relax and become calm.”
“And that was it. Be fluid as water. The power of the call was not my power. It was the power of deep earth, of immutable fire, and pure air. Here in the west, it was the mighty power of water. The sea, the rain, the tears, the cold sweat on our bodies. Everywhere.”
“Let me be a vessel for the wisdom of water.”
“I drank. Whatever was in the cup, it flowed down my dry and aching throat with a honeyed ease, then spread a blessed warmth all through my tight chest.”
“A Caller does not possess any magic of her own. She is a channel, a conduit for the power that exists in nature” (that is, for us, in God).
“I had spent a great deal of time standing utterly still with my eyes shut, feeling in my inner self the working of waves and tide, or the subtle movements of fish out there in the ocean. Breathing as they breathed, learning the great rhythms of the sea. Feeling the same patterns in my blood and in my breath, and becoming one with them. This kind of learning could not be rushed.”
“With eyes closed, I breathed with the ocean. In my mind, I drifted with the gulls on the swell. The waves cradled me, until I dived beneath into a realm of light and shadow, a mysterious place of drifting weed and sudden darting fish. I was one with the water. Its power ran in my veins; my heart beat with its ebb and flow.”
“Be fluid as water, and as strong. Nothing stops water. Water is eternal.”
“It’s a balance you must always keep, Neryn, for a Caller must on the one hand be sure and confident in the use of the gift, and on the other hand have no desire for personal power, no ambition to rule or to dominate. You know the perils that could lead to.”
You see why I love how Juliette Marillier presents the truth, and I do not apologize for quoting so much. Just think of water as the depths of God, of His Spirit.
And this is a critical point I am making in this entire series, that we must go calm and quiet into God, that we might hear the beating of His Heart, that we might become one with all that our Father is, that we might KNOW Him. For this alone is life, life in us, and life flowing out.
Water in Meaning Expressed by Words
Many hundreds of English words have something to do with water. One could bring water into poetry in innumerable ways. And every single one of these words in every nuance of meaning tells us something about the God out from whom we come every moment, the God we are calling, by our words, into our world.
There are words of water in its many forms, brine, drink, frost, ice, liquid, moisture, perspiration, slush, water vapor. Words of water in the form it takes, or the many kinds of water, bath water, body of water, creek, flood, ground water, lake, ocean, puddle, rain, river, sea, seawater, springs, spring water, swamp, well water.
There are words of water as applied to something, asperse, bedew, dilute, douse, drench, dunk, flush, humidify, moisten, rinse, soak, submerge, waterlog, water-soak.
Then, the antonyms of water are useful as well, dry, desert, thirsty, parched, and so on.
And every sense and meaning of water is useful to us to know the God who is entering our world out from our hearts.
Aspects of Water
As we saw, one of the best pictures for us of how water works together with the other elements is a plant. Water can come to the plant directly from the air as rain landing on its leaves. Nonetheless, most of the water inside a plant comes out from the ground, from the rains falling on the earth. And this water carries all the elements of the earth needed as building blocks by the plant.
Let’s consider the four aspects of water, similar to last time, when we looked at the four aspects of fire. And we are speaking of Spirit Words, things that we speak and ways that we see.
- Water that Dissolves – water with impurity.
- Water that Springs Forth – water with earth, this our days coming out from Pro-Knowing.
- Water that Blesses with Abundance – water with air, that is, the rains of heaven.
- Water that Gives Life – water with fire, this also includes healing.
Yet impure water, as confirmed by James, is the speaking of false words. Thus impure water is those same false thoughts bouncing around in the human mind, which we know are always attended by and carried by an unclean spirit.
Water springing up from the earth is an interesting thought – water flowing out of the Rock. And the majority of water used by a plant flows up into it from the earth. Thus we can see that our Father is that Rock, the depths of His Heart where we hide. And from the depths of Father inside of us come all the springs of our daily life, our flowing circumstances every moment.
These are good, good pictures God has given us.
Water as blessings of abundance is very prominent. Yet James indicates that those are also words flowing out from our mouths, words of blessing and uplifting, words of encouragement and strength.
But life itself is the product of water and fire together. The life of a plant comes from the right mixture of water from earth and air, and fire from the sun.
These are profound meanings, and we need many gifted writers to help us develop the many beautiful nuances of word as water.
Connecting Water with Life
In looking at the Bible verses above, the majority of them connect water directly with life, and since it is the Spirit who gives life, with Spirit as well. Inside this metaphor of water as life, then, we see healing and abundance, wholeness and growing things. We see joy and blessing and purity.
Yet life is also change, and water speaks of that constant change and how we are to adapt to it in utter trust in God.
We will expand more on Water as Life in all of these qualities and more in the next chapter, “Sent as Life.”
Calling a God of Water
Now, the Bible specifically says that God is Fire and that God is a Rock. But the metaphors of Water and Air refer to Spirit and Word. John said that the waters flowing out are the Spirit, and the speaking of words comes to us through the air.
Yet I think that it is James who gives us the most important understanding we need concerning calling a God of Water into our world, that it is the words that we speak, words of kindness and hope, of blessing and goodness and strength, that are the essence of this God of Life entering our world. And this is the homeopathic quality of water and of God, that the water carries inside itself the frequency of the life flowing out, a frequency that causes everything it touches to sing together in joy.
Yet these words that we speak bring change and transformation, for as Paul quoted Solomon, giving a cup of cold water results in coals of fire heaped upon one’s head. Fire is the forgiveness that opens up the heart, and water is the soothing calm that brings healing to all the hurting places.
What we mean, then, is that the Words that are God, coming through our mouth, as Paul and James say, bring the words inside each individual person into whom we speak into harmony with the singing of God.
And that is healing, and it is life.
But the primary essence that water teaches us is that we rest in calm quietness until we are utterly in tune with the depths and the being of our Father, in tune with His very Heart. Only by this could we ever call a God of the water of life into our world.