Getting Water from Rocks

Back in November I wrote come comments reflecting on the Exodus story -

Deserts are relentless – and humans are not well-adapted to desert demands.

As the Israeli tribes travelled deeper into the wilderness of Sinai toward their promised home, their principal need was water.

Once, in Exodus 17, when the need was especially acute, God told Moses to smack a nearby rock. To everyone’s astonishment, water gushed out. God knows the map-line of every underground aquifer and how to provide for his people.

That happened more than once as God proved his faithfulness to his people. Israel immortalized God's power in poetry and song:

He split the rocks in the desert and gave them water as abundant as the seas;

He brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.

Psalm 78:15-16

This event opens up several insights which I plan to explore over the next few posts.

Today I simply note with the psalmist that the God who accompanied Israel in the desert is the very God of Creation – One who makes water abundant as the seas available to thirsty complaining pilgrims. The God of history and the God of our todays is the Source of all things. There is no limit to God’s resources. The geography of scarcity is no impediment to this God.

As generations come and go, Yahweh is a faithful provider.