A lesson from the Water

I did some research this morning on freezing and thawing ~ it is so strange to me that we as people completely buck the process that God designed.

I remember being a newlywed and our freezer did not have self defrost, much less an ice maker. Stacking those ice trays ups and checking them way too often would be so frustrating to that 17 year old girl. What was even more frustrating is opening the freezer and there being ice trays in there with no ice and no water at all. Refilling ice trays was not my strong suite. I wish I had known about $5 bags of ice from sonic back then. Anyway, my research today showed me that four typical ice trays put into the freezer at room temperature take 10 hours to freeze. As the molecules of the water get colder and colder they expand and grow larger until they are those chunks of ice.

That typical piece of ice, though, takes on average less than 2 hours to thaw. I don’t know the science on this, but in view of life events I find it interesting. God in all His wisdom made water to thaw faster than he made it to freeze. Can we humans take a lesson from the water? It seems that God has used water for ever to try and teach us lessons.

Genesis 7:17-19 ..and it continued forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered."

Exodus 2:5-6 "Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked beside the river; she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to fetch it. When she opened it she saw the child; and lo, the babe was crying. She took pity on him and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children...And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son; and she named him Moses, for she said, "Because I drew him out of the water."

Exodus 7:19 The LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt--over the streams and canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs'--and they will turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars."

Exodus 14:21 states, "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided." Verse 24 says, "And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians."

Exodus 17:4-5 4 Then Moses cried out to the LORD, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me." 5 The LORD answered Moses, "Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink." So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?

Matthew 14:22-33 Jesus walks on the water

John 2:1-5 1 Now on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee.89 Jesus’ mother was there,90 2 and both Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine left.” 4 Jesus replied, “Woman, why are you saying this to me? My time has not yet come.” 5 His mother told the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.

John 4:14 "but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to Eternal Life."

What has been amazing to me is that when God controls the water there is a lesson in it. When we experience hurts we freeze automatically, we don’t take 10 hours to puff up and let our hearts get hard. It is as instantaneous as the water was turned to wine. We have an automatic icemakers in our minds and hearts and when we experience hurt it is much like that magic shell chocolate we used to use a kids. It hardens around us immediately and is unyielding.

But our thawing process is slow and tenuous. It takes prayer and understanding and hugs and friends to let those guards down. God forbid we get hurt while we are thawing because then our hearts and minds become the human version of the frozen tundra. Layers upon layers of frozen fears and hurts and scabs just pile onto the old ones until we wonder where the first frozen layer even is. Our only hope is to let the God of heaven thaw us from the inside out, to let the miracle of him control our ‘water’ like He has done so aptly since the beginning of time.
As I watched in awe and somewhat horror (just being honest) as my husband smiled and shook someone’s hand yesterday that had brought much pain to our family, I was witnessing a thaw. A thaw of hope and a thaw of mercy that created a thaw of it’s own in my heart. I had never been more proud to say my husband was a person of character and someone I can call my rock and my strength. I pray that God continues to thaw us into what He wants us to be and if you have ice around your heart and your mind, just take it to Him and ask him to THAW you out; that is my prayer today. Let’s be like the ice and be easier to thaw than to be frozen. Let’s be who God desires us to be.