Untitled Post
Water is a clear, odorless, tasteless, inexpensive and versatile liquid made by combining two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Internet is a fount of information dealing with liquid sunshine.
How many times do we see Water – its effects and its many forms, what it contains. How important is water? It is a matter of life and death. It is one of the basic necessities. And it comes in the form of vapor, dew or frozen. It brings life, joy and tragedy. The sunset likes to see its reflection in the sea. The sea is like a huge family reunion of rain drops.
Mother (Anna Daisy) often told about the time she fell into a muddy Kansas creek and held her chin above water while waiting for help. She often told me about it when she was beginning a new venture such as speaking or writing. She continued to hold up her chin in new experiences when she felt that she might drown or — fail. It never deterred her efforts to climb a new mountain of endeavor.
When I was young, my parents decided I should learn to swim in the beautiful swimming pool in Clinton OK. They took me, and my two younger brothers, to this huge cemented pool. Imagine a little girl whose hero Dad, took her to the 10 feet end of the pool, clinging to the side. When he had me settled, shivering and clinging, he told me to watch, as he plunged down 10 feet in the water. I watched his watered-form descend and then rise. I could see that he returned each time. But it seemed to me that he was exploring the edge of space – before I ever knew that was possibility.
We returned to a lesser depth of water, where my parents planned to teach me to swim. I learned eventually, but not when Dad and Mom tossed me back and forth in water just over my head. I learned the wisdom of holding my nose at that point. Finally after a period of time of ‘tossing’, I promised I would learn on my own. I spent many happy hours swimming. Then I learned that if I swam on my back, the water covered my ears so I would sing and watch the drifting clouds above me. My swimming strokes matched the rhythm of the song I sang, oblivious to anyone else around me.
Grosmom Emilie Siemens sat on our porch (1942) in Clinton, Oklahoma, rocking back and forth in her steel rocking chair in rhythm as she sang the hymn, “Shall We Gather At the River.” The thoughts zipped through my mind. Why that song? What river? I knew she came to this country at the age of 16 from Russia. Was she remembering ‘Rivers Past’ in Russia? What was it like for her to cross the ocean to this country. Did she like living her life in a land-bound land in Washita County of Oklahoma where only creeks were found? The song lyrics, “I won’t have to cross Jordan alone, Jesus died all my sins to atone When in the darkness I see He’ll be waiting for me And I won’t have to cross Jordan alone,” came to my mind.
We often went fishing as a family. Dad and Mom were avid fishermen. Eating fish with all their little bones was not enjoyable for me, but they relished a fish supper. My brother, Jim, loved fishing all his life. I learned to take a book to read, especially after I was teased about fishing for turtle doves (my hook snagged a limb way up in a tree!).
A flood was forecast for the Dodge City’s Arkansas River in the early ’60’s. Although we lived a mile away from the river and lived in a square wooden two story house, we could hear the rumbling of the water as it flooded the low area just south of us. The power of the water as it rushed down the stream and could not be contained in the river bed struck fear in my heart.
Years later, we visited our daughter and explored Newporte Beach. As I stood in the water, I knew the strength of the ocean as it tried to topple me with its waves and its mighty roar. Where did this power come from? Where does it go? Would it ever stop? What happens when there is no water? How did the ocean come to be? I knew where to find the answer….
Genesis 1:1-8 – First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke: “Light!” And light appeared. God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night. It was evening, it was morning— Day One. God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters; separate water from water!” God made sky. He separated the water under sky from the water above sky. And there it was: he named sky the Heavens.
Water, ocean, seas, rivers, creeks, wells, all comes from God. An over abundance of water is told about in Genesis 7, the great flood. It describes the storehouses God created.
Verse 11-12 – It was the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.
Later Jeremiah (51:16) tells us “When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.“
Later, when Jesus asked for water from a well from a Samaritan woman who asked why are you asking me for water? Jesus told the woman – “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.” John 4:13-14
Water. A precious commodity. A liquid that can preserve life. Even a desert can contain deep wells of liquid refreshment. Water contains the power to clean us and our possessions physically. But only through Jesus can we have Living Water!
Bob Carlisle wrote:
So come Living Water flow through me like a river My heart’s been thirsting so long
Flood through my soul and pour out your mercy Come Living Water fill me