Water & Power

A friend recently texted that their town was replacing their neighborhood pipes, so they’d be without water for a short time. Ugh! If you’ve gone without water or electricity for a day or longer, you know that not having something so essential, highlights how essential it really is! Suddenly, its absence makes the heart grow fonder, and we tell ourselves we’ll never take it for granted again.

For me, familiar scripture can be like running water or electricity in our home - it’s there, and it’s nice to have, but sometimes I take it for granted and forget why it’s so crucial.  But what if the Living Water didn’t flow in my life and my power source was cut off? To imagine life without the truth of a familiar passage, I re-write the verses stating the opposite reality. For example, here’s what life would be like without the Shepherd of Psalm 23:

The Lord is not my Shepherd; I lack everything.

No one settles me down in green pastures;

I just keep pushing on through barren deserts.

No one leads me beside still waters;

All I can find are turbulent ones.

No one restores my fatally sick soul.

No one has any reason to point out the right path to me;

I always pick the wrong one.

When I’m trapped in the valley of the shadow of death, 

I fear all the evil, because I’m all alone.

There are no guides or guardrails to comfort me.

I’m starving, but there’s no food around - 

only my enemies are before me, and they consume me.

I’m dry and empty.

Truly, wickedness and steady hatred have chased me down all the days of my life,

and I’m far from the Lord, homeless forever.

If you need fresh appreciation for familiar verses like these, try taking their truths and writing what your reality would be if the opposite were true, because the water and light of the Word become even more precious in their absence.