Water For Life

By Alan

"Water, Water, Everywhere and not a drop to drink."

Samuel Coleridge wrote "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" and spoke those famous words, talking about being at sea and surrounded by undrinkable sea water. Imagine the frustration of those sailors, dying of thirst, but unable to partake of billions of gallons in water surrounding them.

For the very short period of time when I was in Mexico with others building simple housing, I had to be constantly aware of water. We were forced to drink water when our bodies told us it wasn't needed. We often had heat stroke cases among our team for those that forgot. We had to truck our own drinkable water in with us, because, as we were constantly reminded, the local water was safe for those that were locally raised, but potentially quite harmful to our non-locally raised bodies. We still had to use local water to mix concrete and stucco for walls, and it was often tempting to just splash it into our mouths to cool off the desert heat. But that would have been risky at the least, and dangerous at the worst. Water, but not to drink.

Most of us reading online with Internet connections have never encountered anything like real thirst or life threatening dehydration. We live in a world of privilege, where drinkable water is not only a common thing, we trivialize it. We use pure clean water to drink, prepare food, wash our face and hands, or wash our dishes. But, we also use that same pure water for washing the dog, watering the lawn, washing the car, or even just running down the drain because we aren't bothering to use it right now.

How many people in this world can afford to waste pure water?

God has known this all along. The role of water is such a basic fundamental understanding throughout the Bible, that it continues as a theme from the beginning to the end.

God knew how important water was to our survival, as well as to our luxury. He talked about water in the bible over 770 times. Many references are to water as a part of a sea or ocean, but lots of references are towards water as life sustaining drink and the way to become clean.

It was a river flowing from the Garden of Eden in the very first verses of Genesis. It was essential to Abraham settling into the land promised to him. It was miracle of water sprung from a rock that kept the Israelites alive in the desert. Jesus walked on it, but more importantly, He was baptised in it.

Now, while the River Jordan wasn't a laboratory clean river, (In 2 Kings, Naman probably complained that it was a muddy river), it represented a purity that was previously unavailable to all. But, Jesus said that He would provide Living Water that would wash away sins, and that if we drank of it, we would have Eternal Life.

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city." (Revelations 22:1-2)

Clear as crystal. Pure and clean. Able to be drunk and provide everlasting cleanliness, everlasting life. What an illustration of the importance of pure water. It cleanses us, it sustains us, it satisfies thirst, it washes away filth, and it refreshes life. Water represents cleaning and renewal for our spiritual lives.

It represents physical life sustenance. Pure water cannot be replaced with anything else. People can't live from the milk of cows (because the cows need water, too). People can't live from vegetable juice, because the crops need that water in the first place. It must be present to even survive, much less thrive. God expects us to live with water. He expects us to thrive from it.

Please go and support the 30-Day project over at charity: water. This is such a simple way for those of us who have, to help those who have not.

Comments

[jasonS]

Great post, Alan. Thank you.