Let it flow!

From the awe inspiring creation narrative in Genesis to the breath taking culmination of all things in Revelations water flows between the pages of scripture.  It courses through the Word of God leaving for us symbols of God’s creation, blessing, and salvation.  Being referenced in the scriptures over 700 times is enough to show us how significant water really is to God, and for that matter, how necessary it is to us.  Water is an element that is essential to us both as a symbol and a physical resource.

Humans cannot live without it.  About 70% of our adult bodies are made up of water.  The average person can go a whole month without eating food but they would die after just one week without drinking any water.  We can see how important water is to the human condition. Whether the Bible is speaking about it in a figurative or literal sense, either way, we are in desperate need of it.

The bottom line is that when Jesus said, “I thirst” we sympathized, knowing exactly what it felt like.  Our mouth crying for mercy as the tongue protests its displeasure with the evaporating saliva, each time it opens our tongues tear away from our palette and our ears hearing the same painful sound that the sticker adhesive makes as it’s peeled from a cotton shirt.   All the while our minds’ only comfort is dreams of refreshing floods of water.

In fact, the Bible writers often chose this relationship we have with water to poetically define our relationship to God.  In Psalms 42:1, David writes, “As the Hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”  We don’t know what it means to lap water up like a deer but we do know how we feel when we are extremely thirsty.   

Water has stood for centuries as the element which literally held human life in the balance.  In the desert, where the climate was particularly unforgiving, a good water supply was among the priorities for the traveler while he journeyed.  Major cities of the Old World were strategically designed around access to water.  The Nile River is a body of water that had a major impact on civilization.  Ancient Egypt was essentially built around the Nile.  This river, flowing some 4,600 miles in length, provided so many life sustaining benefits for those who settled along its banks (Gen. 13:10).  Most Egyptians lived near the Nile because it provided water, food, transportation and excellent soil for growing food.

Historians claim that Egypt would not have survived if it were not for the Nile River.  Also, Israel’s deliverer, Moses might not have lived if it weren’t for this river which became, for him the very hands of God’s divine providence.  Throughout the agrarian societies that sprung up around the world, each found clever ways of taking a natural source of water and distributing it in their lands.  This is called irrigation.

Elsewhere, another form of irrigation also preserved Man’s fainting souls.  It was the well.  It had become a central feature of nomadic settlements.  It was also a representation of God’s providence, for it refreshed the weary traveler along their arid journey.

In Genesis 21:28-30 we see how vital a well’s water supply was.  Abraham made a public declaration of the ownership of the well.  Abimelech’s men strove with Abraham’s son Isaac and incited a tense territorial conflict with him (Gen. 26:15-22).  They feared his growth and prosperity.  They sought to slow the growth of his estate by disturbing his water supply.  They knew that a people who had access to water would also have access to life.

In this is a great tragedy.  The Enemy also knows that we need God’s divine flow.  We need to be refreshed from Heaven.  We so need the new mercies and daily bread to augment our otherwise meager existence.  We live our lives forgetting that there is an intense attack on our very welfare.  An angelic battle is being fought daily unbeknownst to us, on our behalf.  Satan knows that we need water.  We need to be planted like that tree by the stream.