Imagine you are in the desert. Now think, what happens to you in the desert. If you have no water, you die, right? You could have all sorts of other things with you, but if you have no water you will eventually die. Now imagine that suddenly you see, walking by you, a man who is saturated, dripping from head to toe, in water. What is the truly human response to seeing him? You run. You have one goal. You run to this man and you say "You have something that I need, that I desperately need so that I can live. Where did you get this water? Show me! Can you take me there?"
This is the truly human response, the truly holy response. But are there not many other responses possible?
One can truly be in the desert but not realize the danger of the desert. One can convince oneself that being parched, being hot, being listless, is all part of the normal course of things, because, after all, this is the way everyone around me seems, too. Human beings can adapt tremendously and endure all sorts of hardship and learn to just suck it up. Who needs water?
One can see the wet man and be interested, but think "Well, I guess he's just one of life's fortunate ones. I'm not like those people. Things don't go well for me. Look -- he's got water, I don't. Poor me." One could, I suppose, hate the person who has been to the water, approach him and kill him if self-pity morphs into hatred.
One could see the wet man and think, "Wow. He has water. I wish I had that. That's amazing. I wonder when I'll find water." It could be fear, passivity, self-hatred, or some other factor that that keeps his heart closed to approaching the other.
One could run to the wet man and say "Just let me lick you! Let me wring out your clothes... give me everything you have!" But this is so unreasonable, for certainly the small amount that is evident on this man is nothing compares to what has filled him and what the other needs, and even less compared to the source that was able to drench and quench him so.
No, the only thing to do is to take the human need seriously enough, and to understand human limitations well enough, to have the courage and humility to go to the wet man and ask to be taken straight to the source.
Now, what can the wet man say? He might be an idiot who doesn't realize he is wet and that the desert is hot. He may have a short memory that he's been somewhere wet. He may simply live among drenched people and not get out much, not realize that there are people out in the desert who are dying. He may be a proud man who assumes the dying man's need is all about him. He may then be scared off by the man's desperation and struggle with his inadequacy to meet his need. But what needs to happen is that he knows the irreplaceable value the water source is to his life and to everyone else's. He needs to simply say "Come. I'll show you."
When I think of how God has established His kingdom to be dependent upon our cooperation with His grace, it seriously boggles my mind.
1 comment:
Mine, too...
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