During Vacation Bible School last week, I ran around a room full of kids with this soaker spray gun or this watering can. The kids joyfully jumped up and down, screaming “Get me! Get me!” Water changes things.
After hailstones the size of baseballs drop from the sky during a summer storm, rooftops are dented and car windshields bashed in. Water changes things.
Hurricanes bearing down on the coast roar, “I’m coming!” and millions of people flee. Water changes things.
One hydroelectric plant can provide power for 100 million homes. Water changes things.
That’s why we learned about water in Vacation Bible School, or more specifically, how God changes things with water.
God created water and changed our world. God made water come from a rock and changed an impossible situation. God healed a man of an incurable disease and changed what he believed. Jesus offered living water to a Samaritan woman and changed her life. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet and change them into sacrificial servants.
Water alone is powerful. Hail, hurricanes, hydroelectricity. But even more powerful is God using water that he created to serve his purposes.
God sent a world-wide flood once. Jesus said that God the Father “sends rain” (Matthew 5:45), and Jesus calmed storms on the Sea of Galilee. That is God’s living water.
If I came to your home tomorrow morning to see water spraying up into the air from the ground in your front yard, I wouldn’t call 911. I’d know it’s your sprinkler system. You have designed it into zones and scheduled the auto timer to change your lawn from brown to green, from dead to alive.
That’s what God does in your life. His divine design. His perfect timing. God changes things.
PRAYER: Dear God, thank you for making a big splash in little hearts at Vacation Bible Schools this summer. Just as you created water and have used it to save people, wash sins away through baptism and change the lives of those who need to believe in you. Amen.
BIBLE CHALLENGE: How many incidents can you list where God used water in the Bible for his divine purposes? Work with a friend. Can you come up with more than 10? Email them to me (just describe it, you don’t need to send the exact Bible chapter and verse), and let’s see how many incidents CrossWords readers can list. I’ll let you know!