Water: Friend or Foe?
Water is good for cars, except for when it’s not. Good in your radiator, bad (by itself) in your radiator during winter. Good on your Corvette with soap, bad under your Datsun 510 with salt. Good in your coffin-nose Stanley Steamer, bad in your W109 Mercedes’ gas tank. Good in the built-in flower vase of your Volkswagen Beetle Turbo S, bad as condensation in your Audi S6’s cup holder.
Sometimes we take great efforts to protect our cars from it. Other times we can’t get enough. We’re like cave-dwelling pagans, praying to one god to deliver water and another to deliver us from flooding. Water is indifferent. We can’t rely on it.
Water is indeed elemental, but in the hands of God, it submits to God’s will for nourishing and protecting us. God used the same Red Sea to both give safe passageway to the people fleeing Egypt and drown Pharaoh and his army (Exodus 14). God answered Elijah’s prayer by withholding rain for three and a half years, and then answered him again by pouring out rain and giving life to the crops (1 Kings 17:1 and 18:41ff).
Perhaps Moses knew this even before he saw the Red Sea part. Or, if he’s anything like most of us, he had some concern when the Red Sea didn’t close over Pharaoh right away. Moses knew God’s power when he saw the Red Sea parting. But when he saw the last of his people crawling up to dry ground, and the Egyptian army still storming across the dry bed, he could have had some doubts about God’s love. He could have wondered if God’s will included the death of his people.
We know God’s plan: for redemption for his people, to “draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32) Yet when bad things seem to happen under God’s control, when God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,” (Matthew 5:45) we wonder if God has our best interests in mind right here, right now.
Countless examples of God’s provision should give us some hope. When Jesus’ disciples found themselves in a storm with a sleeping Savior (Matthew 8:23-27), Jesus could have let them ride it out to teach them about trust. Yet he quieted the waves. When Jesus’ disciples and mother found themselves at a wedding with no wine (John 2:1-11), Jesus could have miraculously absolved their biological need for wine, or cloned the cheaper wine they just depleted. Yet he created a flavor that astounded the master of the banquet, and he created more than 120 gallons of it.
If God is indeed preparing a place in Heaven for us, wouldn’t he also take care of our needs on earth? The emotion of God’s work is not a cold, divine indifference, but the unreserved joy of a generous father. So our reaction to God’s work cannot be terror, suspicion, or indifference, but joy. In his prophecy about the coming salvation earned by Jesus, Isaiah used the word “joy” to describe our response: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” (Isaiah 12:3)
Imagine the master of the banquet drawing just one ladle of wine Jesus made. There was joy when he saw that they had wine again, and even more joy when he tasted its quality. With joy he saw that his one ladle would be refilled again and again and again by the 120 gallons of highest quality drink, because God gives in abundance. With joy we can taste that abundance in our salvation through Jesus, the living water.
We draw this water when we joyfully set aside our terror, suspicion, and indifference and say “God, I trust you,” for our eternal life and our day today. Besides, we didn’t have much joy when we doubted God’s provision, did we? The best joy comes from God. “You give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” (Psalm 36:8-9).
When you’re carefully washing and drying your Corvette, and protecting it from saltwater and freezing rain, know that God uses even more care to provide the water you need and protect you from the water you don’t.
