Leadership

... a beautiful sunrise
on a cloudless morning, with grass glistening from recent rains. . ." 

That’s how King David describes the legacy of leaders who uses their God-given power to serve their people.

In recent days, millions of Egyptian, Tunisian and Lebanese people have clamored for new leadership. Unjust leaders breed anger and frustration and stifle hope.

In Over Your Head and Going Under

Sometimes life gets crazy – everything happens at once and you feel yourself going under. A child gets sick, a friend turns hostile, your wallet is empty, dead-lines converge, you're losing your capacity to hold it all together.

You’re being sucked under, over-whelmed.

Some of Israel’s songs express this kind of nightmare experience.
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
The floods engulf me.
Don’t let me sink;
Do not let the deep waters swallow me up.
Psalm 69

God, We're Thirsty

The worst times can inspire the most passionate songs:

O God, you are my God,
Earnestly I seek you;
My soul thirsts for you,
My body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1

King David was fleeing for his life. His son Absalom had staged a revolt, overthrown the crown and was consolidating his power in Jerusalem. David fled the city with a small band of supporters and headed east across the 20 km stretch of hills towards the Jordan.

David and Goliath

This iconic story celebrates the gutsy little guy taking on the giant and beating the odds.

But between the unlikely hero and the big bully lies a small creek-bed – and that creek holds the secret to what the fight was all about.

The valley of Elah was a strategic piece of real estate. It runs roughly east-west at a point where the Judean hills in the east drop down to the coastal plain inhabited by Philistines. The Philistines eye the valley as a corridor to the agricultural interior of Israel. Pushing their way inland up the valley they pose a formidable threat to assert dominance over Israel.

A Town Called Lifta

In the suburbs of northwest Jerusalem, on the edge of the busy Jerusalem-Jaffa highway, water flows from an ancient spring. It fills a small pool and then flows out into the Wadi-al-Shami.

This spring has a rich and tragic story to tell. Millenia ago it quenched the thirst of the early Canaanite inhabitants of the land. Across the centuries all manner of people have washed their faces and laundry in its waters.

It is mentioned in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 15:9 and 18:15 as “the spring of the waters of Nephtoah” at the time of the Isrealite occupation. Nothing else is told about this landmark except that it helped to mark the border between the tribal territory of Benjamin and Judah. It was not assigned to one tribe or the other, but as a shared resource, giving both tribes equal access to the waters.

No Shortage of Water

Moses sounds like a travel agent. . . After leading his people across the desert to the threshold of the Promised Land, he gives them a glowing description of the land before them.

The LORD is bringing you into a good land--a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills. Deuteronomy 8:7

It is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it. Deuteronomy 11:11-12

After forty years in the dry desert this sounded like paradise - rain-water, ground-water and surface water in abundance, streams and pools and springs - a farmer’s paradise for sure - and a hydro-geologist’s dream.

Let Justice Roll Down

In Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1963, he quoted the Hebrew prophet Amos when he said “we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Amos and MLK both lived in prosperous nations who were proud of their religious heritage. Both were appalled at how religion so often masked hearts of greed and hostility.

Amos roars out God’s disgust over religious piety:
I hate, I despise your religious feasts
Away with the noise of your songs.
Amos 5:22 NIV
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
Amos 5:24 The Message

Amos believed that justice was the life-blood of society as water is life for the land.

Ocean Vents

Solomon was an astute observer of nature. In his Song of Wisdom in Proverbs 8 he celebrates the intelligent design he sees in the very fabric of our complex world.

He particularly singles out the wonders of water – and how consistently it functions.

► Oceans are enormous but measurable and well-regulated. Despite tidal variations and gale-force winds, gravity holds the sea in place.

► Above us, clouds, which are the epitome of freedom in motion, are nevertheless ‘established’.

► Below us, the 'fountains of the deep' are 'securely fixed'. This doesn’t mean that geological fissures never shift, but that laws of hydrology are constant and reliable. Aquifers store water and release their stores to the world above in ways that well-drillers can rely on.

Before The Oceans . . .

The Song of Wisdom

I was born before the oceans were created,

I was there when the LORD established the heavens,

when he drew the horizon on the oceans.

I was there when he set the clouds above,

when he established springs deep in the earth.

I was there when he set the limits of the seas,

so they would not spread beyond their boundaries.

And when he marked off the earth’s foundations,

I was the architect at his side.

I was his constant delight,

rejoicing always in his presence.

And how happy I was with the world he created;

how I rejoiced with the human family!

Water Warehouse

The Genesis Creation story describes the artistry and power of God creating the world. It is effortless, effective and orderly. God speaks and things happen… Light, Sky, Ocean, Land, Grass,

But Psalm 33 depicts God working hard to organize nature.

Think of God as a warehouse manager . . .

"He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;

he puts the deep into storehouses.'

Psalm 33:7

It’s a picturesque metaphor - the vast inventory of the oceans collected and compressed into barrels or skins, stacked up and stored in place so that human life can prevail on the earth.  Vivid language to express the majesty of Yahweh’s governance over the world with purpose.

Land and Sea

“God said, ‘Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.’”

Genesis 1:9

Photo Credit: Distantpeak.com

It’s the second dazzling water event in the great Genesis Song of Creation – the emergence of the earth out of the Sea at the voice of God - the transformation of a featureless ocean into a sculptured landscape!

Antrim Coast Northern Ireland

Imagine the forces that came into play that day, as tremors ripped through the earth’s crust, trenches gashed the sea-floor, hollowing out deep marine basins - and elsewhere giant crags of land thrusting up through the surface of the sea, catching the glint of the sun.

The dry land gives us a place to stand, to build and grow. The earth buffers us from the ocean waves, yet it drinks in the rain and holds enough water to sustain grasslands and cedar forests. Trees and people need to be rooted, as do cities and civilizations. We need the land just as we need water.

► Day One gave us Light;
► Day Two, Air and Sky;
► Day Three divided Land from Sea.

If it weren't for the Sky . . .

Day two and three of the Great Creation Story witness two stunning wonder-of-water events – the emergence of the atmosphere and the separation of dry land from surrounding oceans.

Two crucial environmental events that define the Earth as we know it! Today we’ll consider the first – and in the next post, the second.

The troposphere – what we commonly call Sky, but including the air around us – is a fragile and invisible membrane between us and the cold dark. A mere 15 kilometers of space between sea-level and the highest clouds holds most of our air. It’s where most of our weather happens.

Even the 50 kilometers out to the ozone layer is proportionately thinner than the skin of an apple, but it is a complex and highly functional domain.

In the Beginning . . .

"At first there was just ... water!"

It's a fascinating story - perfectly designed for the first week in a new year.  But how can you describe something before it exists? 

The Genesis Creation story uses two words - tohu and bohu - formless and empty, to describe the 'soup of nothingness' out of which the material world emerged.  God's Spirit moved like wind over this deep abyss - which is called 'the waters' - mayim in Hebrew.

This formless expanse of mayim is the womb of the cosmos, and hovering over this unformed sea of possibilities was the Spirit of God, the breeze that flutters, the Dove that broods.

The voice of God rings out through the emptiness.   “Light!” shatters the darkness, radiating glory and energy everywhere.

All stories are edited - and the Bible leaves out a lot of details –