The Water Always Wins

Jason Nelson

I would like to revisit an expression I heard when I was watching coverage of hurricanes Harvey and Irma: “The water always wins.” Meteorologists used it to sound a warning. When it comes to catastrophic weather events like hurricanes, don’t think you can take on the water and win. It always seeks its own level and will rise as high as it wants to go. It can force its way through a hairline crack in a wall and wash everything away. Water can kill you. Most people who die in hurricanes lose their lives in the surge of water. The water always wins because God made so much of it. Over 70 percent of the earth’s surface is water now, and there could be more in the future if glaciers and ice caps continue to thaw. 

Let’s flip this idea. With the power of ordinary H2O in mind, think about what Jesus is saying about himself here: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13,14). Jesus takes water to a divine level. He is the risen tide of our spiritual survival and eternal salvation. He won. “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Revelation 21:6).

Devotional used by permission of Time of Grace®. For more information, visit www.timeofgrace.org