We are Water

Psalm 77:16-19, “The waters saw you, God, the waters saw you and writhed; the very depths were convulsed. The clouds poured down water, the heavens resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen” (NIV).

This might be far… far… far… too metaphorical, and I’m honestly not sure exactly where I’m going with it.  Fair warning.  I love the daily office readings (if I didn’t, it would be difficult to continue to blog like this… although I admit I have been less consistent than I would prefer in recent weeks), but the amount of repetition sometimes makes it difficult to dig deep enough for new insights on a regular basis.  This morning, however, I think I hit the water table…

We are water.  Raging, unpredictable, profound. 

Infants are made up of something like 78% water.  When you bring a new baby home, it’s basically like buying a gallon of spring water at the grocery store, except you do have to consider the other 22% of human being that requires work to keep it alive… so it’s actually not like that, at all…

By the time we become adults, we have writhed and convulsed and trembled and quaked enough that we’re only about 55%-60% water.  Transformation takes place, but that’s still a huge percentage.  It’s more than half.  But we’re a little less fluid than we started out…

God creates with water.  And then later, God destroys with water.  And then even later than that, God redeems with water.  And we’re water!  I wonder what that says about our creative, destructive, and redemptive potential in the world.  Maybe everything.  Maybe we should be praying for God’s invisible footprints to trample our mightiness and to cut a path straight through the middle of who we are. 

L.