Rehoboth - the essence of home

After his neighbors disputed with Isaac over two earlier wells, Isaac dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, "Now the LORD has given us room and we will flourish in the land." Genesis 26:22

In my last post I explored the story of Isaac and his neighbors in the northern Negev and the well which he named ‘Rehoboth’ in gratitude for the ‘wide-open space’ it gave him to enjoy good relations with his neighbors.

 

That story has personal significance because my home is named Rehoboth.

My wife Tiffany is a hydrogeologist, a well specialist. A few years ago, reading Isaac’s story she was struck by his choice of a name that enshrined the values of freedom, space and harmonious relations with neighbors. She named her house Rehoboth.

A year later she welcomed me into her life and now together we work to make our home a spacious place, to fulfill the meaning of its name.

Isaac also had a remarkable wife, Rebekah, who knew a thing or two about wells - and about hospitality.

Rehoboth - space to be neighbors

As his herds increased, so did Isaac’s need for water. And when his crops flourished, the jealousy of his neighbors over-flowed. They fouled his wells with rocks and dirt and eventually evicted him from the region.

In a day when revenge and dominance was a sign of strength lest your opponents sensed fear and weakness. Isaac showed remarkable restraint. He intuitively knew the proverb that a soft answer can turn aside wrath.

Spring in the Gerar Valley today

Isaac left his crops and moved his herds elsewhere – to the Gerar valley where his father had dug wells and pastured flocks decades earlier. Local herdsmen had filled them in after the old man died, but Isaac re-excavated them and continued the family cattle business.

Prosperity makes enemies as well as friends - and the local herdsmen harassed the wealthy newcomer. When Isaac dug a new well, his neighbors claimed prior right to the resource. Isaac named the well “Argument” and walked away from it. They contested the next well, so Isaac named it “The Well of Anger” and abandoned it too.

Patiently Isaac outlasted his adversaries. He dug a third well over which no one fought. He named it "Rehoboth" – Wide-Open Spaces – in gratitude for the elbow-room it gave him and the opportunity to live peaceably among strangers – and to flourish together, sharing the natural resources.

Jonah - discovering God's immensity

The strange story of Jonah is not just the tale of a runaway prophet and a very large fish.

It’s also an instructive parable with a provocative and global message.

I think it speaks boldly to the current debate about mosques in a post 9/11 America.

God refused to write off the city of Nineveh despite their vice and violence. God sent Jonah east to give them the word, but Jonah went west instead. He wasn’t about to risk his life or reputation for such unworthy and improbable converts.

In truth, Jonah could see where God was going with this mission – and he refused to accept.

Fountain of Life

Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is home to more geysers than any other place in the world. Half of the world’s 1000 known geysers are here.

Geysers occur only in particular hydro-geological conditions, usually near active volcanic zones, where surface water works its way down to a depth of around 2,000 meters where it meets up with hot rocks. The resultant boiling of the pressurized water produces the geyser effect.

Every 90 minutes or so, Yellowstone’s most famous geyser, Old Faithful, serves up a fountain of 15,000 to 30,000 liters of boiling water and spews it 150 feet into the air - thunderous power and surprise, dramatic beauty and unfailing reliability.

The poet-king David never visited Old Faithful, but in Psalm 36 he wrote about his experience of God with equally dramatic nature imagery.

Thirsty No More

Guest contributor - Grace Jacobson


Sometimes you meet the strangest people at the water-cooler.

I’d never seen him before. We could have been any two thirsty people coming for a drink. How could he have known that behind my mask I was forever searching for love in all the wrong places?

Five times my dowry returned, I’d forgotten who I really am. I’d giving up the formalities and even worse, the hope of every finding my true love – or my true self. I came at noon to avoid the whispers of the gossips.

I could see right away that he was a Jew and I braced for the sting of his slur. But he merely asked for a drink. “What, no racist epithet?” I asked.

But he simply said that God is generous and if I knew who was talking to me and asked him for a drink, he’d be more than willing to give me a drink. I stared at him.

Hagar

The desert sun has no mercy.

Ishmael had swallowed the last of their drinking water miles ago. Now, faint with thirst, he began wailing with pain.

Hagar couldn’t go another step. Like thousands of desert mothers before her - and since - she was desperate, but spent.

This story will end well, but not yet. She and her son will survive, but their story must be told so we can understand.

Abundant Life

The Jordan is a small river.
But in ancient times it made a huge difference to an arid land: a steady supply of water, shade trees and verdant pasture land.

Five cities grew affluent across its plain. It was lush ‘like God’s garden' - the Garden of Eden.

This is a story about faith and economics; about natural resources and life choices.

Abraham’s young nephew Lot had an eye for agricultural potential and opportunity – and the Jordan plain caught his attention.

River of Delights

The name Eden means delight – and what is more delightful than the silver glint of a river coursing through a lush green garden?

The Creation story in Genesis Chapter 2 describes such a river flowing through God’s 'Garden of Delights', a landscape of sheer perfection – visually beautiful, functional and richly instructive. Genesis tells us that Nature is not primary. God is. The garden and river come from a landscape artist who loves life, beauty, form, function, and, quite obviously, the people for whom the garden was designed.

Imagine this - God designed us all to live in Eden, and for Eden to live in us, with a river – God’s living spirit - flowing through us, a stream of joy and purpose, of love and creativity, a stream that keeps us alive-to-God and to the world around us.

The Blue Marble

From space, Earth looks like a "blue marble" - 75% of it covered by water. The vast blue of the oceans laced by swirling white clouds showcasing the beauty and symmetry of God’s Creation.

Psalm 104 revels in Earth-maker's workmanship – sky, clouds and rain, rivers and wet-lands, wild-life and forests - and now (in my final post on this ancient hymn) the wide blue oceans.

The Hebrews were not a sea-going people, so biblical oceans usually roar wild and restless. But in this song, the ocean is spacious and hospitable,“teeming with creatures beyond number, living things, both large and small” – from tiny microbes and plankton to dolphins and manta rays, from corals and conchs to octopus and sperm whales. Yet despite the fullness of the sea, it is not crowded; there is plenty of room for ship traffic and for whales to cavort, calve, graze and migrate.

Rain Forest

Forests are the lungs of planet earth.

They consume our CO2 and exhale oxygen.

They filter our pollution and purify the air; they re-cycle back to the atmosphere vast amounts of water through transpiration and thus help to regulate the climate patterns for the world.


Deforestation is like planetary lung cancer; it takes our breath away. We simply can’t survive without the forests; they breathe for us. We didn’t plant them but they sustain us. Reckless logging and large-scale burning for agriculture destroys a crucial balance of soil, water and air. And we all pay the price of that wanton short-sightedness.

Rain, Rain, Rain

The annual migration of Serengeti wild-life is a desperate drama -- two million desperately thirsty animals traveling hundreds of miles in search of the life-giving rains. Without the rains, they die.

We all do.

Ancient Israel's Earth-maker hymn, Psalm 104, celebrates Rain as a sign of God’s generous providence. And as Jesus noted, rain does not discriminate; it falls on "the just and the unjust alike"!


He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
Psalm 104:13

Rain photo from 'The Water Cooler' blog
http://www.centralbasin.org/blog/category/drought/

Cool Mountain Streams

Ten of Asia’s largest rivers begin in the Himalayan glacial fields. It is the largest supply of frozen water on the planet after the two polar regions - sometimes called "the third pole". The ice-melt from these vast reservoirs helps feed over 2 billion people - a third of the earth. Psalm 104 celebrates God's power and love as demonstrated in fresh-water mountain streams.


He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the air nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
Psalm 104:10-12

Photo courtesy of Pauline Watson, Lethbridge Alberta

Proportionately rivers and streams are a miniscule drop in the global water bucket. Over 97% of the world’s water is ocean and most of the rest lies frozen in snow-pack or glaciers or stored under-ground in aquifers. But there’s still a lot left and a small portion of that – about 13,000 cubic kilometers – flows down the Amazon, Nile, Congo and Mississippi, the Danube and Rhine, the Yangtze and Yellow, the St Lawrence, Volga, Ganges and Brahmaputra, MacKenzie, Murray and Mekong, the Rio Grande and the thousands of tributaries that feed them and hundreds of other rivers like them, draining the highlands to irrigate the thirsty plains below.

Vast ecosystems depend on these rivers. Grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees grow in the water or along the shore; insects swarm above them; fish ply the currents, graze the stony river-bed, and procreate in quiet places while other fish come in from the ocean to spawn in ponds upstream; birds feed on the grasses or fish or insects; snakes and frogs, turtles and alligators and mammals large and small quench their thirst or satisfy their hunger from the river’s bounty. All these inter-act in a dynamic balance of Nature. All of them call the river ‘home’.

Humans depend on rivers for food, drinking water and sanitation - why so many cities grow up along rivers. Rivers serve industry, commerce, travel and recreation. And the aesthetic beauty of rivers, whether the thundering majesty of Niagara or the peaceful quiet of a woodland stream - rivers are one of God’s wonder-filled gifts for nourishing the human soul!

But the Tibetan glaciers are shrinking – rapidly – and I wonder . . . what is it all going to look like a hundred years downstream from here? And I wonder how to pray for those who depend on these waters. Any thoughts?

Psalm 104 – Part Three