I wrote most of this post a couple months ago. Since then it's been dry again--until tonight when it rained, and I was reminded of how refreshing the rain is!
Last week it started to rain for the first time in over a month. And it rained and it rained. As the rain fell, I instantly felt myself relax. No longer were my eyes squinting in the bright sun-light. No longer was everything covered in red dust. The rain brought refreshment and rest. No longer were there dust clouds as we bumped along the dirt road to church. No longer were the pine-covered mountains brown and smoking from fires. No longer were farmers anxious that their crops wouldn’t grow. It’s so like water to do that; to restore hope and bring life.
It’s just like Jesus talks about in the Bible. He is our living water, our wellspring of life, our very source, and our sustenance. If we turn to him when we’re going through dust storms in our lives or just feeling burned out and used up, he promises to soothe and comfort us. It’s no coincidence that he chose a well—the source of life-giving water—as the place to minister to the Samaritan woman who had had five husbands. He used water to restore sight to the blind man, and if we could just dip our toes into the pool of Bethesda, we, too, could be healed.
The rain trickles down slowly at first, and then becomes a steady cascade. The rain fills the buckets set out to collect it and fills our hearts with the promise of new growth. It washes the dust off from the plants and their fruits, off from the streets and houses, and it cleanses us, too, from the inside out. Thank you, Jesus, that when we feel our wells are drying up, we only have to turn to you and you pour into us and fill us with your living water!
On a less metaphorical note, water is something we too easily take for granted. We assume that when we flush a toilet or turn on a faucet that there will be water there. Shoot. In the USA, we not only expect to have water, but we expect that it will be the exact temperature that we want it to be. When the hot water heater fails, it becomes an urgent matter to get it fixed. First world problems. To be honest, I am super fortunate and blessed where I am living in Honduras, and I don’t mean just the city I’m living in, I mean the very neighborhood. Some higher power here has control over the on/off valves that send water to homes and businesses. Where I live, we have a huge holding tank, so even when the water is off for a couple days, we are fine. I’ve only been without water for showering a couple times, and I almost always have hot water for my shower thanks to an electric shower head. Others are not so fortunate.
At school, I often overhear conversations related to water. “We finally got water again. It’s been 8 days.” Or, 12 days, or 20. How on earth does one function with no running water for 3 weeks?! Well, if you have money and a holding tank, you can have a tanker truck come to your house and fill your holding tank, but, let’s be honest: most people here can’t afford to buy water. Instead, they have big plastic barrels, and stacks of five gallon buckets. When the water comes on, they fill every receptacle they possibly can, and even if it’s 12:00 midnight, they set to work washing the dirty clothes that have been piling up, just waiting….and waiting….and waiting for the water to come on. You can’t wash clothes by hand without the assurance of plenty of water; it simply takes too much. But, as days pass without water, there has to be an alternative. That alternative is gathering up all your dirty laundry, jumping on a bus, and going for a hike to the river to wash your clothes there. Yes. Really. Third world, capital city problem. The point is, though, when the water doesn’t come to the people, they go and search it out.
What if we were like that with our relationship with God? What if we didn’t take his presence in our lives for granted? What if we filled our holding tanks—our hearts—to overflowing with him every day so that we could pour out that love to others? What if when we didn’t sense him coming to us, we searched him out? What if we let him clean us and satiate our thirst? What if……?
