Sweet Water

Sweet Water

Bible Blast: Read Exodus 15:22-27

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

It’s November, and no matter where you live, the air is probably getting colder at night. Maybe you even have snow on the ground already. Do you remember just a couple of months ago, when you were complaining about how hot it was? On those really, really steamy days, all you wanted was to sit somewhere cool and sip an ice-cold drink, like a tall glass of freshly made iced tea.

Now, for you southern girls, iced tea has a very specific meaning. It’s sweet tea. If you’ve never had sweet tea, I promise you that stirring a packet of sugar into a cold glass of tea is nothing like real southern sweet tea. To make sweet tea, the sugar is added to the tea after it’s been brewed on the stove while it’s still hot. That way the sugar completely dissolves into the tea and stays dissolved even after the tea has cooled off. It’s great because you don’t have to stir the tea up every time you drink it. Some people can’t handle sweet tea because it really is very, very sweet, almost like syrup! And so yummy!

God gave Moses a recipe for turning the bitter water at Marah into sweet water. The recipe was simple; all Moses had to do was throw a tree in the water. It worked. The water turned sweet and good to drink. The Bible doesn’t explain what kind of tree it was, but God somehow empowered that tree to heal the water so the people could drink.

I can think of another tree that heals bitter, yucky things. In the focus verse you’ll see that sometimes the cross is called a “tree.” Crosses were made of wood from a tree. When Jesus died on that tree and rose again, people could be set free from sin and healed through their faith in Jesus. That tree has the power to turn anybody’s bitter water into something sweet and good, which is another way of saying that God can take any bad situation and make something wonderful come out of it.

Whether you drink sweet tea or unsweetened tea, Jesus hung on the tree to bring you freedom through faith in him.

Girl Gab: If you and your mom usually make sweet tea, make a big pitcher of it and take it to a friend with a bright summery note attached to it. If you’ve never made it, check out our recipe for sweet tea in the Wacky Appendix, and make some for dinner tonight. Talk about your favorite memories from the summertime with your family.