Give Drink to the Thirsty

I remember first hearing this as a corporal work of mercy and thinking that at least we had gotten this right. With running water and a 7-11 on every corner, it would be pretty difficult to find someone that was thirsty. Then I heard a statistic that over one billion people in the world do not have a fresh water source to drink from. This leads to illness and death, especially in children.

It pretty hard to give much thought to anything else going on in your life when you are just trying to find water to drink.

What was even more telling was the attitude that I had. The idea that we had already solved this issue. We tend to be pretty closed in, focused on ourselves, until something like an earthquake brings that reality home to us.

There is a gentleman that I know who sacrifices a great deal to help run a mission in Haiti. At this point he is trying to get a great deal of medicine there, but something that blows me away is that this person who runs their own business, still takes a great deal of resources to help others. The mission in Haiti dealt primarily at first with getting fresh, running water to the people that they served.

It just seems like the next logical step.

Get water to people who are thirsty.

So many times the logical, reasonable, and sometimes easy thing to do is not the thing that we do. We get caught up in ourselves and in our own ideas of what needs to be done and ignoring the basic needs that are around us.

We get too complex about serving others when we can remain quite simple in our approach.

Maybe the people immediately around us don't need a drink because they are not thirsty. Maybe they are thirst for something basic such as attention, love, or someone to listen to them. Perhaps they are thirsty for basic dignity.

In any case, this corporal work of mercy brings to mind that many times the needs of those around us can be quite simple and basic. Today, pray for the clarity to see those basic needs so that we can be Christ to one another.

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