Daily Devotional For December 18, 2025
And (the angel) showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Rev 22:1.
The Kaufmann family got to experience a little bit of heaven on earth. They wanted a simple summer weekend cottage by their favorite stream called Bear Run, some seventy miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Edgar J. Kaufmann owned a department store in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression of the 1930s. For many years Bear Run had provided a rustic place for the Kaufmann family and their employees to get away from the city and spend time embraced in the quiet fortunes of nature. The family in particular enjoyed picnicking beside a twenty foot waterfall which sang its tireless song throughout the beautiful wooded area.
To build a unique weekend home beside this waterfall, Edgar Kaufmann engaged the noted, but mostly unemployed, sixty-seven year old architect Frank Lloyd Wright from Wisconsin. What he got instead was a masterpiece, aptly named “Fallingwater.”
It seems that Wright was always long on vision but short on money and execution. After several months of delay, Kauffman informed Wright that he would be driving from Milwaukee to the architect’s studio in order to see plans for the house. Wright’s apprentices afterwards noted that the client’s imminent arrival did not seem to bother their noted teacher at all. With topological map in hand, he made some preliminary sketches and warmly greeted Kauffmann.
After Wright explained how the house would be cantilevered over the waterfall, the very pragmatic Kaufmann remarked, “I thought that you would place the house near the waterfall, not over it.” To this Mr. Wright replied, “E.J., I want you to live with the waterfall, not just look at it. I want it to become an integral part of your lives.”
An integral part indeed. The house with its strong horizontal lines, juts out from the rock outcroppings and comes to rest directly over the falling water. Whereas the visual effect of a house stretched over a descending stream is most dramatic, the sound of the water naturally and continually reverberating through the home is a wonder to hear.1
Fallingwater is considered great architecture because it is not just a cabin by a stream. The entire structure is transformed by the sound and sight of the living stream. Likewise, the Master Architect wants to transform our lives with the Living Water of His Word. Like Fallingwater we can choose to structure our lives so that the Word is our constant companion, filling our lives with its “sights and sounds.” Move next to The Water. Let it become an integral part of your life. It will be a foretaste of heaven.
Lord, let me be attentive to the Living Water You have prepared for me today. I want my life to be a living reflection of Your ways to all who meet me.
1 Based on an email from Jim Park, March 10, 2003.