The deepest water in the world?
It’s found in the Mariana Trench off the coast of Japan. Its depth is about 11,000 meters (36,000 feet). The ocean floor there doesn’t get many human visitors, but there is a variety of marine life.
The cleanest water in the world?
That’s possibly in tiny Elmvale, in Canada near Toronto. The rainwater just north flows to them through a porous landscape that acts like a sponge for contaminants.
My favorite water?
Whatever my kayak is settled in. Do you have a special shoreline or lake?
The most important water?
That’s what you drink daily to maintain life. We are advised by doctors to drink about two liters (half a gallon) a day.
Where I live in northern Ontario we have so many lakes around us that it’s difficult to imagine nearly a billion people in developing countries walking, on average, 6 km a day for just a little, just to stay alive.
We are not surprised that Jesus uses the essential nature of water as a figure for spiritual life. You may remember He meets a Samaritan woman by an ancient well and offers her living water. She first initiates an argument about racial discrimination and then “religion.”
Patiently He lifts her mind out of these issues and challenges her to ask Him for living water. It makes little sense to her initially. It makes little sense to many today, maybe even you.
Jesus persists. If you drink the water I’m talking about, you will never thirst again. The story moves on through the skeletons in her closet, but He isn’t there to condemn, although she has to confront her sins. He simply presents Himself. He is the satisfying living water and many people have experienced that truth.
Von Braun was an American aerospace engineer who, more than any other scientist, brought us into the space age. He laid the foundation for cell phones, the Internet and GPS. Even with twelve honorary doctorates, many streets named after him, money and accomplishments, he found “living water” in God. He often spoke freely of the greatness of God’s creation and of his relationship to God. Perhaps you also are finding out that money and accomplishments just don’t satisfy your soul.
Augustine (A.D. 400) was an influential and important historical figure. A brilliant young man, he was characterized by unbridled, thoughtless living. Pursuing various philosophers, he spurned Christianity as a religion for the simple-minded. But his pursuits left him empty and in encountering Christ he found the only answer to the restlessness of his heart. He wrote a famous line: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
It may be that this article finds you longing for a way out of tired and dusty roads to nowhere. The Lord invites you to Himself. He is living water.
Discover more of the wonders of God’s gifts to us in Doll’s Eyes and Dancing Grass Plants.