If you're like me, you turned on the water this morning and never gave it a thought. You probably didn't grow up in the middle of a desert, then. Some years ago Hollywood produced an Oscar-winning movie about the life of the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. After some of the victories that made him famous, this British hero took some of his Arab friends to Paris with him. since they had grown up in the desert, they were amazed by the running water in their hotel room. On the day there were packing to go home, Lawrence found them trying to remove the bathroom faucets. They wanted to take them home with them - so they could have running water back home! Lawrence explained to them that the water actually came from the reservoirs in the mountains outside the city, not from the faucets. They thought the water was coming from what it actually was coming through.
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You about "Faucet Fascination."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Deuteronomy 8:2-3. "Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years...He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known." God led His people into a situation where their usual sources of supply weren't there anymore - the faucets they were used to were gone. But He supplied for them in a miraculous way they could never have conceived of. He called it manna. The faucet was gone - but the need was met another way.
The Bible reminds us, as those Arab men had to be reminded, that what we need comes from the Reservoir, not the faucet. And God is your Reservoir. Everything you need originates from Him - money you need, the friends you need, a place to live, transportation, love, spiritual support. He sends it through earthly faucets - like paychecks, special people, pastors - systems or people we've always looked to. But that manna in the desert - manna means "what is it?" - shows that God can deliver what we need all kinds of ways!
Our problem is that we suffer from faucet fascination. We start to put our faith in the means. Then suddenly our faucet is gone - people move, people die, people let you down, jobs and companies change, things break down or disappear. No problem. The water never came from that faucet anyway!
Based on what God says in our word for today, God has two means of upgrading our faith from trusting the faucet to trusting the Father. First, "causing you to hunger." He allows your usual system to fail. You may be anxious right now because of a need with no obvious supply to meet it. The faucet is gone - the Reservoir is still there. God just has another delivery system. We don't learn that God is our security until our usual supply dries up.
Secondly, God feeds you with something "neither you nor your fathers had known." Some surprising, miraculous circumventing of the usual system. God will show you a new, unimagined means of meeting your need. It comes in a surprising form, from a surprising place. And you stand back and say, "God, it's You that it all comes from, isn't it?"
And you step into a wonderful new security - one that can peacefully accept the loss of any faucet in your life. It was only a means that God came through. God is your Reservoir - and He never dries up. So don't sweat the faucet. Your Father has lots of ways to see that you have what you need.