Springs of water

Exodus 13-15

I had the perfect blog for today.  This morning I found the children of Israel leaving for the Promised Land and two of my own children, Zac and Sarah, leaving as well.  Zac to Boulder to pursue his sculpture program and Sarah back to UT.  But it’s become too personal for a public blog so I'll write about something else that has come to mind in today’s reading.

Complete dependence on God.  That’s where we find the children of Israel.   They’ve left Egypt, are in the desert and they don’t even have water to drink.  Complete dependence upon God is nearly impossible today.  I’m too affluent.  Affluence can be a great god.  My cabinets, refrigerator, closets and carport overflow.  My bank account, billfold and retirement funds do the same.  And if my affluent gods give me too much there are ample storage units to come to my rescue. 

In Genesis 15 it says that the children of Israel came to Elim where there were “12 springs of water…”.  If you counted the sources of fresh water coming into my home there are exactly 12.  (good coincidence)  Twelve springs of fresh water.  I one time thought that if I turned one on and left town for a year and came back it would still be running.  Gratitude and thanksgiving should be what really “overflows” in my home. 

Affluence can easily replace God if I am not continually aware of His goodness.  Water is a good example.  No one has a right to water.  Millions of humans will do without today and thousands, around 9000, will actually die of thirst today.  I have a hard time thinking of dying of thirst knowing that I own 12 fresh springs.  But my point is this.  What if God chose to put me in charge of water?  Not to give it to people but to make it.  He took all the water away and then said, “Lee, from now on you get to make all the water on earth.”  You see it wouldn’t be 9000 that that would die but in 4 days all 4.5 billion of us would die.  I couldn’t make a drop.  

Here’s what got me thinking about all of this.  When the children of Israel left Egypt the Bible records that they plundered Egypt of all their gold and silver.  America, I mean Israel (Freudian slip, my bust) had all the affluence in the world but they couldn’t produce one drop of water.  How many fresh springs flow into your home?  We could use a little praise practice and there’s a good reason.