“BECAUSE WATER WAS PLENTIFUL”

DAY 9 OF 365 IN 2021

John 3:23 And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.

Migration has been a cause for global concern in recent times. However, it isn’t just a matter for these times because throughout history, communities and people have moved from one place to another in search of better settlement. Among the key features looked out for before settling were resources for survival: land for food production, clean water and a means of defence against enemies. These were the basic determinants for relocation and settlement.

In the Gospel today, it would have been rather strange for John to remain in the wilderness for his mission. For starters, that location would have put  people off because not many would be committed to making such a journey to meet a man who was dressed in camels hair and fed on locusts and wild honey. It didn’t matter what service he was providing. The second and more important reason was ‘he would not have had what he needed to do what he had to do’.

We remember John usually by the descriptive term ‘the Baptist’. Therefore, one would expect him to be in a location where he had access to the resources that would facilitate his role as ‘a baptist’; that resource was “WATER“. Thus, it should be no real surprise that he pitched his tent in Aenon near Salim because as it is written, ‘water was plentiful there’.

Sweetheart, whenever we want to begin an assignment, we need to take time to consider what it is we have to do and what resources we need to do it. Of course God is able to provide a spring in the desert, that is not beyond Him. However, setting up a “Baptist’s hotspot’ in the desert is not wisdom. So I ask you a very straightforward question:

if there is ‘an Aenon near Salim’, where water is plentiful, what are you doing in the desert?

#sly