Drink Pure Water!

We live in a wonderful world full of fantastic creatures.  It is estimated that there are over 7 million species of animals.  Furthermore, scientists are searching the depths of the seas, the dark reaches of caves, the under-explored rain forests, and the high altitudes of remote mountains and finding new species all the time. Did you know that in 2015 there were 18000 new species discovered?

I love learning some of the interesting and unique qualities of animals.  From this site: 25-amazing-facts-you-didnt-know-about-animals, I discovered that a housefly always hums in the key of F, and that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear.   Amazing, right?  There are some creatures, though, that exist on this great planet, that I really wish I had never heard of.

Take, for example, the Guinea worm.  I recently learned of this creature when Public Radio International (PRI story) reported on former President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to eliminate the infestation of people around the world by this parasite (read about it here).  If you are unfamiliar with the Guinea worm, I can assure you that it is a nasty, disgusting creature.  It begins life as microscopic larvae found in water sources.  If a person ingests the larvae-containing water, for the next year the larvae will grow inside their body into long, pale, thin, spaghetti-like worms.  After 12 to 14 months, the afflicted person will notice a burning blister on their skin.  Soon after, the worm pokes its head through the skin and begins to leave the body.    The common treatment at this point is to take a small stick, and wind the worm around the stick to slowly extract it from the body.   It can take several  excruciating and humiliating weeks to fully remove the 3 foot long worm.

The Carter Center has found that simply filtering all drinking water can prevent the larvae from entering the body.  Through provision of filters and education, they have helped to reduce the occurrence of Guinea worm infestation from over 3.5 million cases in 20 countries in the mid-80’s to just a mere 126 cases in 4 countries in 2014.  This blight can be totally eradicated by drinking pure water!

I am thankful that the Carter Center has found a way to nearly eliminate the Guinea worm from infecting people in this world.  That is a wonderful and worthy endeavor.  However, I could have lived a much happier life; I could have slept better at night, if I had never heard of such a worm.

In Mark 7:1-23, the Pharisees criticize the disciples of Jesus for eating with unwashed hands.  They were concerned with keeping outward, natural things, like nasty worms, from entering their bodies.  Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites.  He said, in verse 15,  ^“there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.”   Jesus then further explains, to the confused disciples, that anything we eat or drink is temporary and only proceeds through our normal digestion, affecting the temporal body only.  Jesus was concerned about the spiritual heart of a person.  He went on to say that it is what comes out of the heart that defiles a person.  Jesus, who was God, could see that the sin was already in the heart,  rather like the larvae of the Guinea worm.  And, those larvae-sins in the heart grow into the long sin-worms of “evil thoughts, ^[]”fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, ^[i]envy, slander, ^[j]pride and foolishness. ”  (Mark 7:21-22)

Just like the Guinea worm, these sins grow from within, and then proceed out of the heart of every person, like long, pale worms that we wrap around a stick as they get longer and painfully longer. These are the things which contaminate the soul and can defile a person for eternity.

Shortly after this conversation with the disciples in Galilee, they all returned to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles.  Here, Jesus gave a startling promise to those who would be free of their sin-worms growing in their hearts,  He said, in John 7:37-39, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But, this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive….”  Jesus promised to those who believed in Him that, instead of vile sins issuing like painful worms from their bodies they would drink the pure, living water of Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit, and spill out from their souls this cleansing and sustaining spiritual water.

If it is a wonderful thing to instruct people to drink purified water so that they will not have to endure Guinea worms growing from their bodies, how much more wonderful is it to introduce people to the living, pure water that can cleanse and satisfy their souls?

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