“What is that man doing out there?” Mother wiped away the fog she had breathed against the window and peered more intently through the cleared place.
Beth’s curiosity was aroused, and she had to come to see what was going on outside too. There was a man holding a big twig that looked similar to an oversized slingshot, upside down. He leaned slightly forward and walked slowly about as if looking for something. Each hand grasped a branch of the forked willow, holding it up even with his face, and the other end stuck straight up into the air a little higher than his head.
“Daddy said the well diggers were coming today to start drilling a new well — it must be one of them,” said Mother, and just then, before her very eyes, she saw the stick curl forward and down. The man stood still, holding the other two ends rigid in his hands till the willow stick cracked at the crotch from the strain.
“That’s a strange thing,” said Daddy who evidently had been watching the whole procedure from the other side of the truck. “I’ve heard of looking for water that way, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen it done. Is there some kind of explanation for it?”
Bill just shrugged and smiled. “I know I can’t do it myself,” he replied, “but my friend here seems to have some magnetic attraction to water, and when I have no idea where to begin a new well, he helps me get started. It usually works out.”
There were no springs, no creeks on the farm, and it was expected the well would have to go deep to find a subterranean flow. So this well was not dug, it was drilled. Day after day, a long heavy shaft dropped down, was pulled up, and dropped again, till it had sunk deep, deep into the earth. Heavy cables strained and machinery revolved to keep the shaft lifting and falling, lifting and falling.
This went on for several weeks, and then one afternoon, there was a faint gurgling sound, and the shaft came out wet. They had struck water! Down under sub-stratum of dirt, rock and shale, they had found a clear flowing stream. Oh how good and cold it was!
It reminds me of a verse that King David wrote several thousand years ago. It is in Psalm 46:44There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. (Psalm 46:4). “There is a river. the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God.” David was not the only one to whom God revealed this blessed and wonderful river. The beloved disciple John received a revelation from God and wrote about it in the very last book of the New Testament, so that we too might anticipate that blessed scene. If we have tasted of the Water of Life that Christ gives, we shall someday see it ourselves. This is what it says: “And He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb... and there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign Forever and ever. And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true.”
Now can you see why I was reminded of these verses, when the wonderful, cool water streamed out of that newly found flow, and was pumped into the water troughs for the thirsty animals, and sprinkled out over the parched lawn? I could not see that river. I had walked over that very spot many times and had never known that deep underneath was flowing a crystal stream. But here was proof of it before my very eyes.
And the heavenly river of which David and John and other holy men of God spoke, I have never seen either. But I have tasted it — by reading God’s Word and believing it. Have you? It will make your heart glad, and you will never thirst again for lasting joy. I know, and many others know, it is faithful and true, and someday all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour shall be in that wonderful place, and shall see Him face to face.
“Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4: 13, 14.
ML 07/29/1956