Tag Archives: I say to you

Thankful … for clean water!

 

 
This morning – and any time I want – I turn on the faucet in the bathroom and retrieve a glass of clean water.  Likely, you did too. In fact, even the poorest of poor in our country have access to safe, clean water. That’s not the case across much of the world.

 

The month we lived in Bolivia, we were told the drinking water had to be filtered. We washed our fresh fruit and veggies and dishes in a mild bleach solution and then rinsed them with filtered water. You might think this a terrible and backward condition, but when we traveled just a few miles out of the city to visit friends we had met, we found most of the people did not have access to running water at all. No bathrooms or kitchen sinks. Just a rusty metal drum outside that is filled up with a hose from the water truck…if you had money to buy water.  Looking into the barrels, we quickly decided we would not want to drink from them. But many of the people we worked with suffered stomach ailments due to the parasites, germs and bacteria in their water supply. The truth is that safe water is a rare resource in many parts of the world.

 

I’m guessing you don’t know anyone who has suffered from dysentery, typhoid or cholera. And yet these are all common to families living in many parts of the world. Imagine a population more than twice the size of the United States. That is a low estimate of how many do not have access to clean water in the world. Here, I get a glass of clean water whenever I want, from my home or any public drinking fountain.

 

And so I find myself extremely thankful – for clean water. When you think about it, I imagine you are too.

 

Does being thankful make a difference? I think it does. Imagine saying a word of thanks every time you take a sip of refreshing, clean water. I think our hearts grow a size or two every time we give thanks. Giving thanks has a way of shutting down greedy and selfish thoughts. It breaks down negative thinking. Giving thanks puts us in a right relationship with God. Being thankful for one thing tends to lead us to give thanks for so much more, including each other.

 

Who knows? Being thankful for clean water may be the very thing that makes your New Year an especially rewarding one!

 

“For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.” Mark 9:41

 

“But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14