Doing God’s work is hard, especially if it involves loving people. As Christian medical providers, we are called to serve with the love of Christ, patient after patient, day in and day out. We won’t last long if we are not receiving from the source of love. Unfortunately, people in medicine are great at taking care of everyone but themselves.

We have a great promise from God, that believers who truly live out their faith through caring for those in need will be renewed by God to continue loving. Isaiah 58:11 says that those who practice true religious acts by pouring out their lives in service for others “will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” God will continue to fill up the believer in order to continue God’s work.

This of course is realized in its entirety with the giving of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus says in John 7:37-39: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” We have the source of love living within us, empowering us to continue God’s work of love.

But the busyness of life has done much to quench the Spirit’s work in our hearts. Many well-intentioned Christians desiring to serve God with their gifts end up living lives of duty, spiritually dry and wondering where the living water is at. We need to tend to the Spirit’s presence in our lives if we hope to love as Christ did and do God’s kingdom work.

How is your relationship with the Lord? Is your serving out of your own strength or in dependence on the Holy Spirit? What can you do to make room for God and make the living waters a reality in your life?