It’s raining cats and dogs…You’ve got a face like a wet weekend…It never rains but it pours.
It says something about the soggy nature of the British weather that the rain has made such a mark on the English language.
Indeed it would be difficult to imagine life here without a plentiful supply of water. We turn on the taps and don’t give a second thought to what happens next.
Occasionally things do go wrong and we have to cope with interrupted supplies which can mean filling up pots and pans in preparation for a switch-off.
We might huff and puff at the inconvenience, but for most it’s just a temporary state of affairs and we’re soon back to being unthinking consumers.
World Water Day this Sunday offers us an opportunity to think and pray for those less blessed than we are.
Make Life Flow
There are many of them. Some 2.5 billion don’t have access to toilets, or the safe management of human waste, and 900 million don’t have clean water to drink.
Tearfund’s big campaign this year – Make Life Flow – is about addressing this scandalous state of affairs, one that is daily costing 5,000 children’s lives due to diseases related to unclean water and poor sanitation.
There are many good development reasons why getting water and sanitation sorted is so important – they boost health, enable kids to go to school and improve economies.
There are also spiritual reasons why we, as members of the global church, should be prepared to engage.
‘I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,’ said Jesus in Matthew 25:35, an example of brotherly love put into action that comes right after feeding the hungry.
Like many factors keeping people in poverty, tackling a lack of water and sanitation can seem like climbing a big mountain.
But as Bono told Tony Blair ten years ago when they were discussing reducing developing countries’ debts: ‘When you see Everest, Tony, you don’t look at it, you climb it.’
Heartened
We should be heartened by how far the global community has climbed. Between 1990 and 2004, more than 1.2 billion people gained access to clean drinking water.
Of course the world’s population has grown over the same time and that means much remains to be done, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
We need a big push to get to the top of this mountain. Advocacy and lobbying governments will play its part, but prayer will be vital: ‘The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I, the Lord, will answer them.’ Isaiah 41:17.
David Douglas, who heads two non-profit water organisations in the US, said in the prayer journal Quiet Spaces, ‘Anchoring water work in prayer will remind congregations that they are involved not in abstract social issues but in seeking to respond to Christ.
‘There is a role for each member of the body of Christ to offer others both drinking water and living water.’
Next time you fill up the kettle, why not ask God what you can do to help the thirsty?