Creation Corner
Of Divine Stills and Living Water
By Jim Doenges
Monthly series: July 2006
What is it about water that mesmerizes us or draws people to it? Think about it. Waterfalls, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, and the seashore are places with special qualities that draw us. In the first chapter of Moby Dick, a masterpiece laden with Scripture and Biblical allusions, Herman Melville wrote:
“Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. …What do you see? – Posted like sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. …They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand – miles of them – leagues. Inlanders all, they come…. Say, you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. …Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.”
Water is amazing. H20: two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to one oxygen atom. We must have water to survive. Water is one of the few substances whose solid phase is less dense that its liquid phase; ice floats, which allows for aquatic life in temperate and arctic areas. God made it that way. Most of the earth is covered with water. The earth appears blue from space, and has been called “the water planet.” The salt content is amazingly consistent throughout the oceans of the world, staying within a narrow range of 36 to 38 parts per thousand. Interestingly, the salt content of our body is very similar and can be thought of as an internal sea, each carefully monitored and regulated by the organ systems of our amazing body machines.
Where does water come from and where does it go? For many Christians, especially those of the Suburbanite Tribe who are often afflicted with CDD (Creation Deficit Disorder), the answer would be “it comes from the tap, and it goes down the drain.” Unfortunately, this hydro-illogic cycle is a poor caricature of a life-giving global system created by God.
So formative to creation, water first comes up in the second verse of the first book of the Bible:
“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the water” (Genesis 1:2).
And on the second day of His creating, God separated the liquid water on and under the earth’s surface from the water in the atmosphere: “And God said, 'Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.' So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so …” (Genesis 1:6-7).
The book of Job teaches us that God ordained that rain and snow would fall back to earth from the clouds in the atmosphere: “He bestows rain on the earth; He sends water upon the countryside” (Job 5:10). “He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower ‘Be a mighty downpour’” (Job 37:6).
But how does water that falls on the earth get back up in to the atmosphere to form clouds? Evaporation is one way, but there is another more significant way the hydrologic cycle is completed: plants. God’s chlorophyll creation does more for us than just taking carbon dioxide out of the air and releasing oxygen. Ever wonder where all the water goes that is drawn into plant roots? It is transported in the vascular tissue of plants called xylem to the leaves. The leaves have tiny holes, called stoma, which pump out water vapor. This process is called “transpiration.” One mature tree can release up to 200 gallons of water back into the air each day! Anywhere the ground is covered with plants, transpiration greatly exceeds evaporation. It is estimated that up to two thirds of all the precipitation that falls on the earth returns to the atmosphere via transpiration. This is all the more amazing when you consider that most of the earth is covered with oceans! Without transpiration, life as we know it would likely not exist or be very different. The water released by plants also affects our climate; the cooling affect of one large deciduous tree is roughly equivalent to the air conditioner for a 12-room house. In addition, the water that is released from plants is pure. Even plants growing in contaminated soil release pure water from their leaves. Plants are divine stills, and God used them to complete the hydrologic cycle:
“He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind” (Job 37:27-28).
In the traditional hymn, O Worship The King, we sing about the hydrologic cycle:
“Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light,
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.”
Throughout Scripture, water is used to represent God’s grace – that special gift from God that renews our souls. From the prophet Jeremiah, we can learn that our sin and pride can leave us high and dry: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
Listen to the words of Jesus when he encountered the Samaritan women at a well:
“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?' The Samaritan woman said to him 'You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?' (For the Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.' 'Sir.' the woman said, 'you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?'… Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'” (John 4:7-14)
This is echoed it the last book of the Bible:
“I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give the springs of the water life without charge” (Revelation 21:6).
Do you thirst for something that no soft drink, beer, or material stuff the world has to offer can satisfy? Is your soul thirsty? Drink from the cup of living water that is offered free of charge by Jesus Christ. The living water of Christ is the difference between merely existing and living a superabundant life wherein joy, peace, hope, and love can overflow in you like an artesian spring. Just ask Him.
Jim Doenges, a licensed minister living in Littleton, Colo., is the director of Climbing For Christ's Summit Stewards ministry. |