The actual story went more like this...I woke up feeling congested probably due to the sand that had consistently blown into the nostrils throughout the night. The camel ride was a bit fuzzy, but I remember feeling extremely dizzy while going in and out of consciousness.
When we came to a stopping point, I fell onto the ground in an attempt to stop the spinning in my head. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes to see the light (not that light, silly) blinding me and a man with silver hair leaning over me saying, "Who gets to experience this?" In the midst of my confusion I thought, God sure does look a lot different than I had anticipated. Luckily it wasn't God, just our trip leader who is kind of like Olaf.
After getting some more water in my system and having the leader slap me in the face a couple times until I came to, I was fine and finished the rest of the ride back to our desert camp. Humdullah ("Praise God" in Arabic)!
As our group has continued to retell the story of me passing out in the desert for laughs and giggles, it has made me think about the reality of dehydration in the desert. The Sahara Desert is one of the harshest living environments in the world. There is very little water. However, as little water as there is in the land, there is even less of the "living water." John 4:13 says, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life."
These verses hit me in a new way because more so than ever, I can attest to the fact now that whenever you drink water, you will still be thirsty. On the trip to the Sahara, I drank more water than I probably have in my entire twenty-two years of living, yet it obviously wasn't enough as I lay face down passed out eating sand.
In the same way, it showed me that no matter how much I work to please God, it isn't enough. This is exactly what is happening in this muslim culture and so often in the church too. Muslims lift five times a day, give to the poor, and fast during Ramadan in an attempt to find favor with Allah. Westerners attend the church every Sunday, try lifting when things get hard, and try to be an overall "good" person not out of a love for their creator, but as a way to show God their checklist when they die. This is not what God is wanting.
God is offering this living water so that His children never thirst again. He is inviting each one of us to run into His arms to receive the gift that was poured out on the cross when Jesus shed His blood for us. Jesus took our place. Being fully God and fully man, Jesus was the only one who was able to live a perfect life. In His perfection, He was the only one who could be a sacrifice that would cover the cost of sin once and for all. Now all God is asking us to do is accept that we are sinners separated from Him. By repenting of our sinful nature and believing that Jesus took on the punishment we deserve, we can accept this living water that the Father is offering!
It's pretty cool how God can use something as simple as dehydration in the desert to open my eyes to a story in the Bible I have read numerous times!
