An Oasis, Or Mirage?

I love to take driving vacations. Start with a long open road in front, destination, and a different route on the return trip home. It gives you perspective of the world around you that you never get at 35,000 feet up. In fact, staying off the Interstate gives you a close up of life away from the fast lane.

Our recent trip included driving across from the western side of Washington, and crossing eastern Oregon, down through most of Nevada through the central corridor that brought you to the edge of Death Valley. Imagine the reason why a valley might be labeled with the title “Death”!

Everywhere you looked was the same beige color of barren-looking desciated land. Pockets of green nestled in the drab looking landscape. Sage brush, cactus, junipers, rocks, canyons with valley floors. Life does exist there and we wondered how many rattlesnakes might be roaming through the rocks!

After a while you begin to hunger for the green you take for granted from your 63+ years of life. At some level you understand that Green means Water, else the trees would not survive.

While we were driving through I looked up the Juniper Tree to see how it existed, and learned that it’s a hog on the water that might exist from underground, or from rain. It holds the water, stealing it from anything else around that might need it to flourish. It’s only purpose is firewood and fence posts, of which you see a lot of each in the area. And these Juniper Trees reproduce by the millions and hold the water to themselves.

Think about it for a moment. Water is life sustaining, and you can survive only a few days without it. When living away from civilization, you constantly look for a water source. You learn how to choose which water is safe, or how to make it safe. You are on the constant hunt for water.

As a kid, I grew up seeing water glistening on the hot road far ahead of us. Only, we never got close to it. It was that mirage of distance and illusion of something that was not there.

But on this trip through Nevada, way out on the edges of the high plains and desert surroundings, every so often you would see a glimpse of green! Trees! For some reason, there was water present in just enough quantities to cause those trees to blossom, grow and thrive in small quantities. Generally, it also meant there was a house nestled in the middle of the growth, and I surmised that the water and green color drew someone back in the past to determine that this was the place to live!

In fact, time will tell if what you’ve been aiming at is an oasis, or a mirage of waters that never come to fruition.

Here’s my thought. We often aim at something we think is the one thing we need to survive. Only. Time and again we find it is simply a mirage. That important thing was not there! It does not stop us from looking, when we should be asking the question, “Am I looking for reality or something that never materializes?”

Jesus told his disciples, “I must needs go to Samaria.” A place that was not home, but a necessary stop on a journey. While they were getting lunch in town, Jesus sat at the well outside of the town limits and a conversation started that gives us a hint of his full mission in life.

A woman arrives during the noon hour. Unusual, perhaps, because she came alone. It was probably a chore that was done in numbers by the women of the town, early in the morning, or late in the evening. Likely she was here because she felt more comfortable drawing water when no one else was around.

Her conversation with Jesus identifies herself as a Samaritan woman with a questionable background that included multiple mates, and the one she was currently with was not a legal spouse. We cannot read much into her status because the Bible does not reveal anything deeper about her past, or the culture of the area.

Jesus asks her for a drink of water from the well as she arrives. She is surprised that a Jew would ask of a Samaritan Woman for something that is life sustaining, and it would come from someone that was not a fan of the Jews, or vice-versa.

Jesus describes the water he has to give as “living water” and points out that the water from the well that the woman could draw from was only a temporary source. “Drink here and you will thirst again. But drink from the water I have to give and you will have water springing up that will give you everlasting life! (John 4:10-14)

In essence, the mirage of water only satisfies while you are looking at it afar, and thinking it is the main source of your future. If you aim your entire being toward it looking for satisfaction. it will not have what you need to survive.

However, there is a better thing you can have that is something internal and eternal. You can access this oasis of everlasting life sustaining source and you will never thirst again!

“The woman saith unto him,
Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not,
neither come hither to draw.”  John 4:15(KJV)

She was making a wise choice to change from the Mirage to the Oasis!

This is where many of us are today. We’ve been focusing on the wrong source of that which sustains life like nothing else. It’s a conscious decision to leave the hunt for that shimmering view of water, and draw ourselves to the oasis in this dry and thirst land.

Maybe you have time to review what draws you to that which may not be real, and prepare to find that oasis of water that will sustain you forever.

It’s in your hands to make a choice…