Where to Start?

I am just going to jump back in as though I haven't slept in four different beds, gone to four different churches, crossed continents, traveled hours via cars and planes and literally lived in upheaval for the last four weeks.  If I don't just take the plunge at point X, I will never write about point A so here is this morning's meanderings.

Water.

Imagine the thirsty Israelites in the desert coming to the waters and tasting bitter water.  They were deathly thirsty.  Imagine Jesus, our Good Shepherd, sitting in scorching sun, tired in human form, asking for water and then speaking of Himself as Water.  Imagine a well poisoned.  Imagine a well to be fought over.  Imagine water.

Water.

As I sat and thought about water and my Heavenly Father quenching my thirst I realized a reason I am glad to be a TCK from a country where no one's entitlement includes water, my spiritual understanding of water.  It makes water precious.  I remember the rain falling in huge drops of goodness on the dry, thirsty land and the dust exploding up with scents of life as each drop fell.  I remember dancing fully clothed in a shalwar kameez and duputta under the warm life giving rain.  I remember going crazy when we ran out of water for long periods of time.  I remember as a teenage my dad timing our showers.....we didn't go over a minute.  There was limited water.

Water in the place of my heart is not always available.  It is a fought over precious thing.  For us wealthy souls, hot water can be touch and go and there is none in the kitchen, you have to get it from the bathroom when it is available and carry it to the kitchen to wash dishes.  The hot and cold faucets were put on backwards and are labeled wrong.  The water has poison in it.  Death really.  You cannot drink from the faucet,  or wash your food, or get it on your food or the little beads carrying germs of immense power could hurt you, your children, your family.  Water is not some instantly available commodity in hot and cold and clean.

Here in America I turn on the tap and Voila!  water at the temperature I so desire.  The water has yet to run out, the taps are all correctly labeled.  The shower does not stop suddenly in the midst of a rinse off.  There are no families living around me who knock on our front door for clean water early in the morning.  I can drink from my tap.  Drink from my tap!

This is rather long winded I know but it got me thinking about thirst and Christ.  That word picture, that theme through the Bible of Jesus as a quencher of thirst, a giver of Living Water, is a little lost here.  Droughts mean people can't water their yards not that little boys and girls are being hospitalized and maybe dying, that families are losing their livelihoods and perhaps a child is sold to slavery.  Water's value is dulled by the supply.  There is a sense of H2O sufficiency.

I am thankful for another world view about water that helps me read the Bible through a different lens when I get to stories about my Savior and his supply of Living Water.  I am also thankful in this season for a overflow of "water."  I do not want to lose my thankfulness for my taps and my King because I begin to believe it is my right to water, life, and salvation.