Fresh Water

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is an astonishing sight. Seeing it in person, I realized it was much larger than I had imagined, and I never expected it to smell. Maybe the air was just too calm that day, but I was met with an odor akin to dead fish. That's a little strange, since the Great Salt Lake is too saline to support any icthyologic creatures. The only critters that live in the lake are brine shrimp. These little guys are plentiful, and as it turns out, it is their remains which cause the stink around the lake.
The shoreline of the lake is oddly barren - an unusual feature for a large body of water, and not what one expects at first. Obviously, however, water this salty just doesn't promote much biology.

Even more saline than the Great Salt Lake is the Dead Sea in Israel. It is ten times more salty than the ocean. Except for a scant few micro-organisms, that is definitely deader than a door nail.

There's a succinct yet beautiful verse of Scripture that speaks of a miracle that will one day happen to the Dead Sea. It's found in Ezekiel 47, and these chapters at the end of Ezekiel are actually "sister Scriptures" to those at the end of Revelation. This particular chapter describes a river of fresh and living water flowing out from beneath the temple in Jerusalem and emptying into the Dead Sea:

"When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh." Ezekiel 47:8

It is such a beautiful and refreshing picture of invigoration and healing. To read it in context is to be stirred by its imagery and encouraged by the hope it offers. The hope comes not just from the promise of life for the Dead Sea, but the way our God causes life to spring from death in all those people who have trusted Christ and are called His own.

It's a picture often described in Scripture, as the sojourners on pilgrimage in Psalm 84 are refreshed by springs of water along the way, and a bright promise is given in Isaiah 43:19 for streams flowing in a wasteland.

I long for this.

Faithful are the periods of God's faithful refreshing in my life. When my throat is parched and praises don't come easily and my eyes are dry and vision blurry, the oasis always appears at just the right time and my heart is renewed.