Antoine De Saint Exupery wrote The Little Prince. Before he wrote books, he flew planes, and one of those planes crashed in December of 1935, somewhere in the Sahara Desert, after taking off from Benghazi in Libya.
The airplane slid 250 yards across the surface of a sandy plateau and was heavily damaged, but Saint Exupéry and his navigator Prévot were unhurt. However, all of their water was lost. They were left with “. . . a pint of coffee in a battered thermos flask and half a pint of white wine. . . There were some grapes, too, and a single orange.”
Without food or water, Saint Exupéry and Prévot wandered across the desert searching for help. They followed mirages, and frequently recrossed their own tracks. They always returned to the wreck.
At one point, desperate, they spread out their parachutes on the sand and collected the dew from the the next morning, wringing out the parachutes into an old oil tank. With the first tastes of the gasoline-infused water, they both vomited and sank to their knees.
After four days, they were rescued by Bedouin tribesmen.
Life without water is no laughing matter. 3 days? Maybe 4 days? Some argue that we can make it for 6 days, but those are some hard days.
Here in the valley, we’re in another drought. We’ve actually seen some rain. The difference this year has been the snow melt, or lack thereof. The photos of bare ground where 8-10 feet of snow normally piled, the trickle coming down the river from Salida, the last canal water months early, the massive fire west of Pueblo and more further east.
It’s been a hard summer.
When Moses and the people got out of Egypt, they headed east where the geography was bleak. The people get scared and famously grumble. They keep going and grumble more. And then they land in the Wilderness of Sin, known today as the Wadi Arabah in the Jordan Rift Valley. Parts of it receive virtually no rain. No rain. No water. Period. They would not have even had dew to collect.
“Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. Why did you bring the Lord’s community into this wilderness, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!” (Numbers 20:2-5).
It’s not uncommon in books and sermons to hear the angry Israelites ridiculed. Commentators like to claim the people of God were acting like spoiled children who never knew true obedience or faith. But their quarrels didn’t come from nowhere.
You know, in every cycle of drought I’ve experienced in my short 22 years here, I’ve always managed to hear at least one rancher or farmer say out loud, “Well, it has to rain someday.”
In the Wilderness of Sin, it didn’t have to rain someday. It didn’t really rain ever. So, yes, the people of God quarreled out of reasonable fear.
And the desert they faced went on for a long, long time. They had already figured out that the Promised Land wasn’t right next door. How many more days would they face this barrenness, day and night, quail and manna, over and over and over again? Yes, the people quarreled with God out of their deep sense of frustration.
Fear and frustration are two powerful forces. There’s a reason that the commandment “fear not” is the most common throughout scripture. Fear isn’t trust. Fear isn’t faith.
But of course, God knew their weakness. He heard their cry, as He had before He’d heard their cry for freedom.
He’d heard their cry for food, and He provided.
God gave them--grumblers and non-grumblers alike--what they needed. He gave Moses a solution, and he gave the people water. He doesn’t hold off a few days just to teach them a lesson. When Moses taps the rock, out comes water. Liquid grace poured out of the rock that day.
Ever worry...about anything? Ever wondered where the next job, the next meal, the next paycheck would come from? Ever wondered how that bill or that debt will get paid? Ever wonder where healing will come from? When the pain will stop? When the threat will disappear?
When the river will run full again? When the fires will ever go out?
We can do our part, too, of course, by trusting God, just as much as we can, every day we can.
We can trust him for protection: Nothing in life or in death can separate us from Him.
We can trust Him to heal our pasts: Mistakes are made, yes, but God in his providence pulls goodness out of what’s bad.
We can trust him with our futures: Jesus has gone ahead into Nazareth, so he’s gone ahead too into the interview, the classroom, the bank, the clinic, or wherever our futures seem somewhat less clear.
We can trust him in long stretches, when hope and joy and courage seem in short supply.
But even the trust is never complete. Even the faith of saints has its human limits.
Even at our worst, God gives us what we need. Even at our most fearful, most frustrated, and most disappointed, God shows up among us and delivers us from evil.
When we think we don’t deserve God’s favor, God’s grace flows. Even when we don’t deserve God’s favor, the grace still flows.
The forecasters here have already started talking about this winter’s El Nino. It’s going to be a snowpocalypse or another year with no snow pack. That’s honest but not helpful. We got a little extra water release from the Fryingpan Arkansas Project water. That’s nice, too.
But, best of all, God’s going to provide for us. That’s good news.