WATER

[Watery thoughts on January 12, 2016 at 8:34am]

I have read a story of two men contracted to paint a small community church, and being very frugal, they deliberately pinched and scraped to spend the absolute minimum on each and every material. Then, when they were only partway through their work of which they wanted to rob, they determined that they did not, after all, have enough paint to complete the job.

Not wishing to spend any more money if they did not absolutely have to, well, that they would gain better, they decided they would just dilute the water-based paint they were using so that it would last longer. They did this a couple more times before they finished as with ear to ear they both grinned. And this caused striping on the church as the paint got lighter each time it was thinned.

The painters had just about gotten to the top of the steeple, when, all of a sudden, the bright sky darkened, and the rain started to pour. As the paint streamed down the sides of the church, a voice boomed from the sky: "Repaint, you thinners! Repaint, and thin no more!"

Water may expose a wrongdoing, yet it also cleanses everything.

I remember this story while inside the bus on my way to Roxas City last Saturday for an official errand to one of the councilors in there. In the very early morning my eyes saw a father and son tandem walking in the field both hands with a container, they were fetching water. I was sure had they lived in the early years of Israel, they’d be rather sitting. It would be the women and the girls that would rather fetch the water for them.

When Abraham’s eldest and loyal servant was commissioned by him to go and look for a wife for his son Isaac among Abraham’s own tribe and kindred, the servant found the young and beautiful Rebekah fetching water from the well herself who offered it to the servant and his camels to drink as she hasted (Genesis 24).

When the weary and tired Jesus sat and rested on Jacob’s well around noon, it was a woman, the Samaritan woman, who was fetching water despite her having five husbands in the past. But I believe that because the woman believed, she was cleansed from all moral infirmities she may have had, and she told others too after having been told by Jesus Himself who He was (John 4).

It’s the same Jesus of today Whose water He gives will make one thirst no more (v. 14). As to everyone who drinks it will give eternal life and totally cleanse his soul (John 15:3).