Faithful on Fridays Blog

Water: Part One

What’s the craze these days with water? People are paying a fortune for water bottles? Stanley, Hydroflask, Yeti, even Hydrogen bottles? When did water become such a commodity?

First of all, when God created Earth it was in preparation for His masterpiece: humanity. He separated the heavenly mist from the ocean water with a plan in mind: recycling. Knowing our bodies needed to be constantly replenished, our food supply of plants and animals needing consistent water, He created the ‘water cycle’. That’s His recycling plan: precipitation, evaporation, and condensation. Water gives life.

Of course, the entrance of sin into our perfectly planned creation changed everything. However, God wasn’t caught off guard; He had a plan using water to start over again with a man named Noah, an ark, and a flood. Water can also destroy life. 

The Apostle John had this uncanny ability to hone into the Jesus Story unlike anyone else. After giving the upper story of light in the first few verses of Chapter 1, he continued with the account of John the Baptizer. The religious leaders asked, “Who are you?” His response? He’s the one sent before the Messiah, Christ to ‘baptize with water’ which phrase, by the way, he said three times. Why did he repeat it? Maybe because he specifically said the Messiah will baptize, but not with water, with the Holy Spirit … there it is. Water is a lower story, the physical picture, pointing us to the upper story, the heavenly reality: the Spirit is our vital necessity to live, like water, He gives us life.

Another aspect of water in the Bible is provision; out of love and care, God always provides for our needs, physical and spiritual. Take the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who dug and redug wells to provide water for their families and animals to live. What’s interesting is what happened at those wells. Beginning in Gen. 16 and 21 we find the stories of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. After being treated harshly by Sarah, the servant Hagar was met twice by God at a well in the desert and promised innumerable offspring: the Arabs. 

Isaac’s servant also had a ‘well experience’ when God provided a bride for his master; through a divine appointment he met Rebekah at a well (Gen. 24). Again, Jacob met his beloved wife Rachel at a well (Gen. 29): a place of provision. God’s point was clear, from the lower story of creation, to digging and redigging wells, God was the ultimate Provider. 

John inherently knew Jesus’ experience at Jacob’s well (John 4) was vital; he connected that lower story to the upper story quoting Jesus,

 The water that I give will become in him a ‘spring of water welling up to eternal life’. John 4:14b

Why are people crazed about water these days? Could it be there’s another spiritual awakening ready to well up with living water? 

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:3