It has been raining quite a bit in the DC area since I arrived back from New Orleans.
In fact, it has been flooded in the major areas of metro DC, where main tunnels and roads have been blocked. My brother told me that the Woodbridge, VA area was also flooded. While I was catching up with work e-mail during business travel, I found out that a couple co-workers' basements were flooded. I even heard from a conference attendee that the 12th St tunnel was closed off.
From my brief time there, New Orleans has yet to recover from the devastating outcomes of Hurricane Katrina and the epic aftermath floods which occurred nearly a year ago. Local citizens who have decided to stay or have nowhere to go are still affected. New Orleans was a national disaster, both natural and man-made.
It is quite interesting that the Bible uses water as a symbol for what God wants to communicate to his people and as a symbol for his actions.
One example is Living Waters. Water refreshes us. Water continues to give us life. We cannot survive physically without water within 24 to 48 hours. We can survive without food for a number of days.
Another example is how God used rain to exemplify his judgment on the earth. See Genesis 7:12 and Exodus 9:23 as examples.
If you can remember your elementary school lessons from science class, water has three types of forms. Water serves as a solid form in ice, as a liquid form in water, and as a gas form in steam. The three phases of water have been used in explaining God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. 
Also, the chemical formula for water is H20: two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. Together, they create the stable water compound. As separate forms, these elements in nature will create unstable elemental forms.
Also, water is found in all living creatures, and the earth is covered by over three-fourths of this liquid.
Water is also used in many ways.
* To physically cleanse us
* To cool us from the heat
* To quench our thirst
* To hold aquatic life through the oceans, rivers, and lakes
* To keep plant life alive through rain
Similarly, as we need water, we need God. We need Him even more. We hope that God surrounds us with His love and protection. We want God's presence when we are in true worship and when we are running in fear or feeling anxious and worry in our lives. We want God to be real to us and experience Him. We want to quench our spiritual thirst.
In teachings and discussions, I have used the image of God as an immeasurable sea in which we are covered with our entire body with His life giving water.
Have you ever thought about God as a gentle, refreshing rain? He, like the rain, should encompass us in our every day lives and wash us with His presence. God can refresh us, if we allow Him to move our lives. In The Message version, the Deuteronomy 32 chapter speaks of the Gospel as a morning dew as well as a gentle rain.
As I said earlier, God is our life giving water. Will you thirst for Him? Will you allow Him to replenish you? Will you allow Him to flood your life?
the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals,
all those that came out of the ark with you
—every living creature on earth.
11I establish my covenant with you:
Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood;
never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
12And God said,
"This is the sign of the covenant
I am making between me and you and every living creature with you,
a covenant for all generations to come:
technorati tags: New Orleans; weather; flooding; Washington, DC; Christianity
No comments:
Post a Comment