Digging cisterns of your own

I recently read an account of thirst. Nathaniel Philbrick’s book, In The Heart of The Sea: the true story of the whaleship Essex, is a breathtaking chronicle of real suffering and survival. In 1823, the Essex was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale 3,000 miles west of the coast of South America, and twenty-one men went into three whaleboats. A whaleboat was like a large rowboat. Only seven men made it to Chile, surviving only by eating those who died along the way. Philbrick points out, though, that the real issue for the men of the Essex was not food, but water. In this circumstance, it literally was: “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink!”

It is said that the limits of human survival runs in 3's. We cannot live long after 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. The survivors of the Essex managed to rescue some freshwater casks from the shipwreck, but not nearly enough to last them 3,000 miles. The most torturous part of the trip was the ever increasing thirst that plagued the men. When the fresh water ran out, they drank their own urine. They could only do this a few times before their urine became a paste instead of a liquid. When it rained, they tried to catch water in the sails, but the salt-encrusted fabric made the water undrinkable.

When the first of the survivors was found by a coastal ship, those that were there stated that the survivors did not look like men at all. Extreme dehydration had taken all moisture out of their bodies, so that they looked literally like living skeletons. Their eyes were sunk into their heads, their lips had disappeared, their tongues has turned black and split open, and their skin looked like a mummy. The survivors, hardened sailors who had experienced tremendous hardships, stated that they had experienced nothing even remotely as agonizing as the lack of water.

Water plays an important role in the Scriptures as well as in our physiology. The Garden of Eden was watered by a river, the world was cleansed by a flood, the Nile was turned to blood, the Red Sea was crossed, the Jordan was stopped and then started again. And there’s more: Jonah was cast into the sea and swallowed by a big fish, John baptized Jesus in water, Peter was forgiven on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, water flowed from Jesus’ side, and Paul sailed the Mediterranean. And the last picture in the Bible is much like the first: a river flowing, watering the new Garden of God.

Genesis 2:4-17
“This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-- 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12(The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.   14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Our bodies require a daily intake of water. But then we thirst again. Jesus has promised to give our souls Living Water, the kind through which we never thirst again. But what happens when we become shipwrecked, when we have wandered off the edge of the map? What occurs when we leave the source of the Living Water, and dig cisterns of our own? Our tongues swell and split open, our eyes sink back into our heads, and our desiccated bodies wander deliriously from mirage to mirage. Who will save us from this body of death? Who can rescue us as we lay at the bottom of the boat, in the heart of the sea?