From Chaos to Living Water: The God Who Satisfies

God’s Power Over the Water

In the Ancient Near East, many civilizations believed that water was a force of chaos and had to be controlled in order for life to be created and sustained. In their myths, we can read of gods battling each other to settle the seas and make order in the world. Sometimes the gods were the very water itself!

But unlike any of those myths, the Bible begins with the true account of One Creator, God, who spoke everything into existence (Genesis 1:1). Standing apart from His creation, and without any sort of war or chaos, He told the waters where they should go (Genesis 1:9-10).

“…I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!’” (Job 38:11).

“The waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; At the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. They went up over the mountains; They went down into the valleys, To the place which You founded for them. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, That they may not return to cover the earth” (Psalm 104:6b-9).

Throughout the Bible, we see God repeatedly showing that He is stronger than water, and that as Creator, it must do whatever He wills.

He once used water for judgment on a thoroughly wicked world that had for hundreds of years openly rejected God. This was known as the Great Flood, out of which God rescued righteous Noah and his family, along with every animal species (see Genesis 6-9).

Jesus Christ’s Power Over Wind and Wave

In the New Testament, we see Jesus Christ having the same kind of control over water, coinciding with His message of salvation to all who would believe in Him. In the miracles He performed, He showed that He was God in flesh, sent from God to earth for a purpose. Mainly, that purpose was to bring people, who are all dead in sin, into eternal life. Through His death on the cross, He took on the punishment that sin deserved, setting free all who repent of sin and trust in Him for salvation.

In one miracle, Jesus turned water into wine (John 2:1-11). Another time, He walked on top the water of a sea whose waves were being violently tossed by the wind; when He reached His disciples, He climbed into their boat and immediately the wind subsided. In response, His disciples were amazed and said “Truly you are the Son of God” (Matthew 14:33). The Bible tells of yet another time when Jesus calmed the sea in a storm. While His disciples on the boat were panicking, Jesus was sleeping soundly on a cushion in the stern. They woke Him and frantically said, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). Jesus urged them to have greater faith when He simply stood up, rebuked the wind and commanded the waves: “Peace, be still!” (Mark 4:39). And the wind and waves obeyed!

Water and God’s Love

Jesus also used the metaphor of water to explain the gift of life that He came to bring.

In John 4, He was speaking to a woman, a social pariah of her day, while He sat by the well where she had come to draw water.

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

She thought He was speaking of another well somewhere, but He was referring to the spiritual “water” that He could give her:

“Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life’” (John 4:13-14).

Another time, Jesus said, “… he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

Jesus Christ fulfilled God’s promise from centuries earlier: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).

The Bible tells us the great power of God’s love.

“Many waters cannot quench love, Nor can the floods drown it” (Song of Songs 8:7).

There would never be enough water to satisfy the “thirst” of His love for you. And there will never be forces of water powerful enough to drown it and cause it to cease existing.

That is why God sent Jesus Christ to save you from sin and death, and to give you the “living water” – eternal life.

If you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of chaos, or perhaps simply thirsty for something more lasting than what this world has offered, He will rescue you and provide for you. All you have to do is trust Him.