Faith in the Cracks – Allowing God to seep into the cracks in our lives.

The Bible is full of stories about water. Creation, the flood, droughts, wells, and water from a rock. Water is critical to human survival. However, water can also be a destructive force (flood). One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is in the book of Exodus. The people have just crossed the Red Sea and escaped from the Egyptians. The people are continuing to grumble about being in the wilderness and not having food or water when they could have had what they wanted in Egypt, but oh yeah, they would still be enslaved.

So after they have escaped the Egyptian army, the people are complaining about not having anything to drink (Exodus 15: 22-27). The water they find at Marah is bitter, but God tells Moses to throw his rod into the water and it becomes sweet. The people drink. Then they find Elim and 12 streams so they camp there.

They travel on from Elim and again they complain, this time about food. They get a bit dramatic and claim it would have been better if they had just died in Egypt than starving in the wilderness. God sends quail and manna (What is it? Seriously, that is what the word manna means). This is all in Chapter 16.

In Chapter 17, the people complain once again about water. This time God has Moses strike a rock with the staff that had made the Nile run red with blood. And water comes forth from the rock. Before you dismiss this story, there is science that speaks to rocks holding water – especially sandstone and other porous rocks. Check out this article. So God provides water for the people. But I wonder if some of the complaining is thirst of a different form? Perhaps, the thirst isn’t all physical.

People need water to survive. Our bodies are made of water. Our souls need water too. Maybe the Israelites were complaining because even though they had seen the provision of God, they needed something else. Perhaps they needed to be heard and seen. Perhaps their souls were in a drought and felt like the wilderness through which they traveled.

Maybe we are there too. The pandemic has taken a toll on people. Maybe our souls are tired and dry. Maybe we need to see provision from God. Perhaps we need a long, slow drink from the spring to quench the thirst in our soul. Where do you find that water?