Living Water

Take Your Staff

Bruce Okkema

by Bruce Okkema

The LORD answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. Exodus 17:5–6

Notice that God says, “….take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile.” This staff had also recently been turned into a serpent before Pharaoh’s eyes, and it had been stretched out to part the waters of the Red Sea. So the people would have immediately known that God was about to do something big.

For years Moses had used his staff in the deserts of Midian, leading his sheep and finding water for them. He may have even used it at times to strike rocks for water, because we know that in this area of the desert porous, water-bearing limestone was present which, with the crack of a sharp blow, could release a large flow of ground water. (1)

It was here at Mt. Sinai forty years earlier that God had spoken to Moses from the burning bush, calling him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Remember the story from Exodus 4, in which he questioned God saying,

“What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, `The LORD did not appear to you’? Then the LORD said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ … ’A staff’ he replied … The Lord said, ‘… take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it.”

Is it a coincidence that in both cases, Moses was pleading with the Lord about what to do with the people? Is it a coincidence, that in these cases, God used this staff to work miracles relating to water and deliverance? Of course we know that the Lord can do any miracle by simply speaking a word if he chooses too, but in this case, he added to the impact by choosing a visible symbol which recurs throughout Scripture.

Ultimately, it points to his to his power and kingship in Jesus, the source of all living water!

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is His.
Genesis 49:10

(1) JPS Torah Commentary on Exodus, N. Sarna, p 94.

Water Will Come Out

Bruce Okkema

by Bruce Okkema

The LORD answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. Exodus 17:5–6

En GediIn this story we find the Israelites “grumbling” to Moses and Aaron about their present circumstances. The Hebrew meaning behind this translation conveys a much stronger picture, that of a riotous mob wanting to kill their leaders. I find myself quickly judging the Israelites, thinking that since they had just been brought out of the land of slavery, how could they be complaining already? After all, they had seen the mighty hand of God on the night of Passover, they had experienced the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, manna appeared with the dawn, quail fell from the sky, and they had benefited from many other miracles. How could they be so ungrateful as to be complaining about thirst?

Yes, they were wrong in “grumbling.” Yet, if you have ever experienced the harshness of the desert in this part of the world, you know how vital it is to have drinking water there. A person can literally die within hours without it, so perhaps we would have been desperate too. Also, imagine poor Moses standing in a leadership position over more than six hundred thousand people without water! Can you relate to his grief as he cries out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me!”

As you read the Bible, try to put yourself into the story and experience it as if you were there. The people in these stories are members of our covenant family, so in that sense, we really were. Also, learn to turn your eyes to the Lord in each situation to see how he will redeem it. You will see a God with amazing patience who loves us, walks with us, and provides water even when we complain!

Living Water Flowing

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink!” John 7:37

Living water is one of the many physical images used in scripture to express spiritual truth. We as Westerners don’t usually recognize the significance of the Hebraic use of imagery, and we miss them.

The image of living water is known around the Middle East, where water is scarce and precious. In biblical times, when rain fell after months of clear skies, it was considered a miraculous gift from God. And, in the dry areas, lush plant life was only found on the banks of rivers. From this arose the idea of mayim chaim (MY-eem KHY-eem), life-giving water from the heavens or from a natural spring.

Jordan River.

This image recurs from Genesis to Revelation, strongly associated with the presence of God. In Jeremiah it says, “Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water” (Jeremiah 17:13). From Eden, where God dwelled with man, a river welled up that formed four mighty rivers (Genesis 2:10). In Revelation, the river of life flows out from under the throne of God (Revelation 22:1). So, when Moses struck the rock on Mt. Sinai to yield water it would have made sense to the people, because if God was present on Mt. Sinai, water should miraculously flow from that mountain too.

By understanding the imagery of the scriptures, we can hear God’s word better. We hope you will be refreshed by having a little drink of living water with us each day!

Walk on Ahead

Bruce Okkema

by Bruce Okkema

“The LORD answered Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.“ Exodus 17:5–6

Welcome to “Water from the Rock”! Join us on this new journey through the Bible as we walk slowly, peaking under every rock, looking up and down and around, closing our eyes and listening intently to experience everything that we can soak in. We don’t know exactly where our Guide is going to take us, but this is His territory and He has much to teach us. Where will we go? How long will it last? What will the Lord do? Isn’t it exciting to begin such an experience, knowing that it will be full of adventure, discovery and challenge, yet not knowing what we will see or who we will meet?

We will do our best to provide refreshment and wonder, stimulation and encouragement, nurture and challenge by exploring the rich treasures of scripture packed to overflowing by authors who knew only how to communicate through story and picture. We will see that they are assuming that we know scripture very well, and we may find out that we might not.

We hope you will join us each weekday for “Water from the Rock” by reading what your friends are sharing about their discoveries. Because the Lord has gifted all of us differently and leads us down different paths, so much good comes from studying together in community. We also hope that you will want to participate in this project by sending us your contributions and encourage your friends to do the same. (Guidelines for how to do that can be found on the menu choices below.)

I have already run out of space, but I hope you can feel our excitement! The journey begins July 1. Come along with us, this is going to be great!

Living Water

Ed Visser

by Rev. Ed Visser

En Gedi WaterfallMy people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. – Jeremiah 2:13

“Drink lots of water,” we were told. “Sip it constantly, 3 – 5 liters a day.” It didn’t take long to discover why. Israel is a desert culture; nothing is more precious than water. Maybe that’s why Bible authors often use water imagery — even for God!

Early on our trip, we sat by one of the sources of the Jordan River at Dan. Here there are 17 spots where the water comes out from Mount Hermon in springs, joining together to form a rapidly flowing river. The Jordan flows south into the Sea of Galilee, then it continues south until it empties into the Dead Sea.

In Jeremiah’s prophecy, God uses the spring as an image for himself. And for good reason. A spring produces water year-round, while all other water supplies are temporary or seasonal. Throughout the desert one can see hundreds of wadis, large and small, which flow with water Qumran broken mikvehduring the rainy season, but are dry riverbeds the rest of the year. To keep a steady water supply when not near a spring, people constructed cisterns from rock, plastering the insides. But these held tepid, often polluted water, when they were in good repair. …

Cisterns were useless, of course, when cracked from heat or usage. Springs, on the other hand, produced “living water” — water directly from the hand of God. Regardless of the season or location, the spring brought life in a “dry and weary land.”

Similarly, God is “living water” for our lives, much more like the spring at Dan, the headwaters of the Jordan, than the end of the Jordan, the Dead Sea. The water at Dan was fresh, cool and clean; we even drank from them. But drinking any quantity of the Dead Sea waters would cause rapid illness and even death.

God is also a constant spring, not a seasonal wadi. Yet his people have not only left him, the living water, but they’ve also forsaken him to build their own cisterns. Spiritually they’ve carved out a reservoir which they can control. Sometimes we develop a “cistern relationship” with God. We try to get along without Him, do it our own way, until we get dry and need refilling. Even a short time in the land will convince you how ludicrous it is to forsake “living water” — life itself!

Drink Before You’re Thirsty

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
“O God, you are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
my soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you,
in a dry and weary land where there is no water. ” – Psalm 63:1

Many athletes have heard the advice, “Drink before you’re thirsty!” We were told this often on our trip to Israel in July, where we experienced many days around 100° F, and did much walking and hiking. A few who didn’t comply experienced the effects of dehydration – nausea, headache, dizziness, and even a lack of desire to drink, even though their bodies needed fluids badly. A couple people even needed fluids by IV at a local clinic. David’s words about his thirst were very palpable to us when we stood in the bleak Judean wilderness where he wrote this Psalm.

drinking from EnGediDavid was speaking about being thirsty for a sense of the presence of the Lord in his life. We’ve all had this feeling – about having a need for intimacy with God. In our times of prayer, study or worship, we take a “drink” of living water when we sense God’s closeness and his hand leading our lives. When we are in times of stress, or emotional turmoil, we can become spiritually “dehydrated,” and our thirst for God gets much greater.

Interestingly, drinking before you’re thirsty is very wise advice, spiritually too. When we are in a stressful situation that demands our time, often the first thing to go is the time to pray. Even when we do pray, our stressed-out minds have a hard time relaxing and listening for God to speak to us. As a result, we get thirstier and thirstier. We think that God should come closer because we need him, but he seems to feel farther away. Just like water sometimes is even repulsive to a dehydrated person, we can even start avoiding prayer – feeling that God must be so disgusted by our weak commitment that we don’t deserve to pray. We can truly become spiritually ill from lack of “living water.”

True wisdom is to keep drinking a little at a time, before the heat and stress come. We need to keep seeking out the Lord while times are good, before we are desperate. But, no matter how far we have gone from him, we can be assured if we bring him our empty cup, he will fill it with himself.