Let's Go Get Some Water

After singing a few songs for a handful of people, some of them asked him if he wanted to go get some water. It was a warm sunny day, so that sounded like a great idea. He carefully set aside his guitar. They handed him a bucket and said, “let’s go.” He had no idea what he had volunteered to do. He thought he was just going for a short walk to get a drink.

It was a treacherous half hour hike down a steep hill with a five gallon bucket to get water for the family for the evening. When he got down to the water source he found many people there in line waiting to get water. Not waiting, actually, but fighting. In Haiti, after the earthquake, a bucket of water was so precious that people pushed and shoved to get their turn at the spigot.

He reached into his backpack and took out his water bottle and took a drink while watching and waiting. You see, he was an American musician, brought to Haiti by a Food Relief Organization, to see the need and carry the message back to America. He was supplied with water. The poor destitute people of the island were not. While waiting he noticed a young boy sitting patiently waiting his turn. The boy would just wait until all the fighting was over to get his turn. So the music man took the boy’s jug, along with the five gallon bucket he carried down the hill. He fought his way to the water pipe and filled them up. He handed the jug back to the boy, and then turned to head back up the hill with his few Haitian friends.

The climb down the hill had been difficult. The climb up the hill with an open pail of water was almost impossible. An hour later he made it. As they continued their walk back to the village he noticed the boy with the jug. He had climbed up just behind them. He was told that the boy had yet another hour walk back to his family. He made the trip every day, five or six hours, to get one jug of water for his family. One jug of water. The same amount of water we flush down the sewer every time we use the toilet in America.

When the music man returned to America he quickly got back into the hustle and bustle of his many responsibilities. He was stuck trying to sell his house during the recession that hit America. He complained to his wife about it. He was also concerned what to do with his investments, since he was taking a beating there, too. He went out into the yard to do a little yard work, set down, and remembered the trek for water in Haiti. It caused him to consider how far he would have to walk to get a drink. About ten steps. In fact, he counted up eleven different sources of water in and around his house where he could get a drink, in just a matter of minutes.

The music man told this story to the crowd at his concert. In summation he said, “We in America never ever give an ounce of energy thinking about where we will get water for our daily sustenance. We are blessed, we are truly, truly blessed.”

But I thought to myself differently. A different conclusion to the story. A different word. Perhaps, in reality, we are spoiled. Truly spoiled. I was reminded of the time I took a group of people to Monterey, Mexico to minister for a couple weeks. As soon as we crossed back into Texas we headed for McDonalds, and then half of the group checked into a motel for a cozy night’s sleep. The weeks before we had used toilets which we could not even flush for lack of water. We put a brush arbor roof on a poor widow’s home. We held an evening worship service in the poorest of poor communities, the City of Pigs. How soon we put it behind us. Peanut butter sandwiches weren’t good enough. Sleeping in tents at the KOA campground wasn’t good enough. We are spoiled. And we don’t even have a clue.

If wealth and ease of circumstance were God’s primary concern for me how perverted my heart would become – turned from love, and grace, and peace, to wanton selfishness. Nevertheless, that is what we want and expect from Him. We think, “I deserve it.” And then we wonder why our service and spiritual destiny are so fleeting and fruitless.

“Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?” (Proverbs 30:8-9)