Imagine. 90 degree weather. A blazing desert sun. Sand caked feet. Sand caked legs. Sand caked body. Sweat dripping off your forehead. Your own parched throat. And no water.
Unfortunately, I do not have to imagine this. During my team’s second week living in the Kalahari Desert, we were faced with this all too familiar dilemma for many people around the world. Our personal water supply had been depleted, and the water supply for all of Werda had a shortage. All of the wells had dried up.
In one night, we went from having just enough water to function (cooking, washing, etc.) to having no water at all.
Thankfully during this time God still provided for us, like the Israelites wandering the wilderness, He provided water to us almost as miraculously. However, it wasn’t a rock struck by a stick, for us God provided water through community. A man from our church, Joseph, provided my team with 4 jugs of water from his family’s personal water supply. With this water, we had enough to cook food and to wash our dishes (vitally important due to our huge ant problem) and thankfully each teammate had an allotted liter of water per day. It still wasn’t enough. Washing our hair was a luxury, cleaning our bodies was a bonus, and laundry was excessive.
For a week, every night I would go to bed feeling like filth and praying out for God to do the near impossible. I would pray for rain in the desert. (Just like that one song, A “Drop in the Ocean” which we did in fact listen to).
All the while, I struggled with my selfish feelings. Perhaps it was the lethargy of not being hydrated properly, perhaps I was just in a weird funk, but regardless I felt overwhelmed by my own needs. It took quite some time for me to look beyond myself to comprehend that I was facing an international issue, a true third world problem, if you will. So many people live each day of their lives dehydrated. Unable to afford clean water or just living without access to water, impoverished people deteriorate from the lack of this most fundamental necessity. Water. H20. A building block for life.
When I began to wrap my head around this, God took it a step further. During my grimy nightly prayer sessions, God began to show me how this worldwide issue of lack of water was immediately comparable to worldwide issue of lack of God. When I had been 24 hours without enough water, my body immediately began to protest. But do I instantaneously feel the protestation after 24 hours without enough God? Sadly, I probably don’t even notice. Like so many people who buy a Coca-Cola instead of water (because it is cheaper and more readily available, trust me I know from experience), I run to a quick fix a cheaper alternative with God so many times. But when I had no water whatsoever, I realized the vital necessity water holds for my life. If going a week without proper water supply was barely bearable, then going a week without a proper supply of God should be an impossibility. It should be, but I know that it is a real worldwide problem in which I am a primary offender. So often, I skim across the top of what God has for me, and rest on my laurels because “I’ve already deep with God” or “I know this bible passage inside out”, but I forget to just submerse myself in Him. Because like the dehydrating and easy Coca-Cola, God is rich and readily available, but God is also so much more. He is deep, authentic, and filling. He is the living water from a well that doesn’t run dry.
As if God needed to show any more evidence to this undeniable truth. After a week of no running water, God answered my prayers. The skies poured out rain in the desert. And you better know that I danced in that rain (and I washed my hair too.)
