Living Water

Ellie Holcomb's “Living Water” is a prayer for the Spirit to fill a dry place. The opening verse says that the people have wandered through the desert, chasing what is behind them, but that God is doing a new thing and making new streams. The response is to open their lives.

The chorus asks the Spirit to fill them with living water, trusting that God's well will not run dry. It asks him to revive them and wash over them, and says that in his presence they will find their life. The second verse looks at the thirst again, saying they were always drinking from things that never satisfied, but that God says it is a new day and makes a new way, filling what was dry. The closing section repeats the request to spring up a well within the soul, to fill them until they overflow. Holcomb's voice is gentle and the arrangement leaves plenty of space, so the song works as a prayer for a church that has grown weary or for a person who has been running on empty. It would fit well after a sermon on the woman at the well or in a service of renewal. The picture of water in the desert is familiar from Scripture and the song lets a listener ask for it in plain words.

The new thing in the wilderness is Isaiah 43:19. A spring of water welling up is John 4:14, and rivers of living water are John 7:37-38.