An age old task, drawing water.

I think most of us reading this blog understand the significance of water. We all took 6th grade science and hopefully remember that water is necessary to support life on earth. We understand the wonder of the water cycle and how water is one of the few molecular compounds that actually expands when frozen, which allows freshwater life in northern climates to survive the winter and renews these water bodies each year.
We also hopefully understand the need for fresh water, for drinking and cleaning, both necessary for human survival. Throughout the ages when shortages of fresh water, or droughts, occur there is almost certainly a loss of human life and an economic toll in that area. We no longer blink at the statistics when we are told how many people die because of a shortage of fresh water around the world. Either by dehydration, starvation, or water-borne diseases, all occur because of a shortage of fresh water. Even in the United States, aquifers are becoming dried out with all the water drawn for crops in the west, more saddening however is the amount of water lost to Southwestern lawns and golf courses each year. Just in case anyone needed a reminder of how greedy we citizens of the US can be.
Throughout the Bible, a theme of the importance of water reemerges throughout the text. When Abram and Lot separate, Lot chooses to live in the Jordan Valley near Sodom because, "Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar" (Genesis13:10 ESV). Us Bible readers know just how well that turned out for him... When the Lord (or the three men) visits Abraham to promise him a son, after bowing down the first thing Abraham calls for is water to be brought to wash their feet (Genesis 18:3 ESV). After Hagar and her son Ishmael are exiled in the desert, they run out of water, and Hagar puts her son under a bush so that they do not have to watch one another die of thirst. God speaks to her and promises that Ishmael too will be made into a great nation. "Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water" (Genesis 21:19 ESV). When Abraham's servant goes to find a wife for Issac, he prays that God will show him the right woman by a spring of water when she offers to water his camels, hence he meets Rebekah as she comes to water her sheep (Genesis 24: 10-21 ESV). In the famous Psalm 23 the good shepard, "He leads me beside still waters" (Psalm 23:2 ESV). The woman of Samaria (prostitute?) met the savior at the well when he asked for a drink of water, and he in return offered her living water (John 4).
So what is it that each one of us can do to save fresh water for those who are in need? Use less, only do full loads of laundry or dishes. Put a brick or a full water bottle in your toilet tank so it uses less when it flushes. My favorite, gather rain water in a large cistern (like a 55 gallon drum) to use for watering gardens and other task that do not require clean water. By gathering rain water, you save it from flowing into the rivers and oceans where it is no longer fresh, instead of using up the fresh water in aquifers. Then you too, can go gather water at the cistern, as Christ and the people of the Bible did. You never know who you will be leaving a little more fresh water for.

Then they also will answer saying, "When were you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?" Then he will answer to them, saying, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me" And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:44-46 ESV)