Bad Water

Last year, I went on my first overseas mission trip.  I joined a group of 24 other adults as we flew to Costa Rica to work on an orphanage and lead bible schools in the San Jose area.  It was good to provide help where there is such an obvious need.  There was a tremendous amount of planning before the trip and there were many people offering much advice.  The most common warning I received was: Don't drink the water!

On the long flight over the Gulf of Mexico, I began to wonder just how bad could the water really be?  I mean, there are over 4 million people in Costa Rica and most of them routinely drink straight from the tap.  They don't get sick.  What's the difference?  The difference is conditioning.  We, as Americans, have cleaned and sanitized our world to the degree that we cannot stomach even the smallest of nasties in our system.  Our water treatment is second to none.  Sewage is transported away from our homes and cleaned.  We have public awareness campaigns that instruct us on how to wash our hands.  What mother doesn't have a little bottle of hand sanitizer in her purse?  This squeaky world is fine as long as we stay isolated.  But that's not where we are called to be.  Jesus went to the dirty, unclean people of this world and asks us to follow his lead.

When Adam and Eve fell from grace in the garden, God issued three curses.  The ground was cursed because of Adam's sin.  Eve was cursed to 'desire to control her husband' and to pain in childbirth.  The serpent was cursed to forever crawl on his belly.  Then God's first children were banished into the wilderness.  From that point on, man has tried to get back into the garden.  We have tried to escape our curse ever since.  Think about it.  Cultivation - irrigation - pesticides - insecticides - giant harvesting machines: all to deny man's curse.  And what about childbirth?  Labor and delivery suites, birthing coaches, epidurals - all attempted escape from pain.  We keep trying to create our own Eden.  A clean, sterile, hygienic, pain and work free world.  But has this made us weak?  Have we become soft?  The truth is, we are still very much in the wilderness.  A physical, emotional, spiritual wilderness - lost.  But this is the world we live in.  This is the world of the broken, hungry, unclean, and dirty.  The more we try to isolate ourselves from the unclean, the less we are able to tolerate them.  As we venture out of the comfort of our 'safe' world and enter a place like Costa Rica, we quickly realize we have only been fooling ourselves.  We can't drink the water.

Escaping Egypt, Moses led the Israelites out into the wilderness and they traveled for three days without finding any water.  When they finally came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink.  The people complained and turned against Moses.  "What are we going to drink?"  So Moses asked God for help and the Lord lead him to a piece of wood.  Moses threw the wood into the water and it became good to drink.  It was here that God said, "If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you" (Exodus 15:26).  Maybe we are in the wilderness so we will have to call out to God.  Instead of trying to remove ourselves from the dirty places of the world, maybe we should trust God to keep us safe.  Instead of working so hard to expel everything that offends, maybe we could just let him be our filter and protector.  This is God's promise.

After they left Marah, the Israelites came to the oasis of Elim.  They found twelve springs and seventy palm trees.  And rest.