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What did you ever learn from your studies in geography that made a lasting impact? Perhaps you find maps and locations on the globe absolutely fascinating. You pride yourself in not only knowing exactly where you are but which direction to turn to go to whatever place you want to go next. If this is you, then you are probably rather amazing at answering at least some “Trivial Pursuit” questions. You are probably also a major annoyance in the back seat to the person who is driving. Perhaps the most you ever learned from geography class is that you could seem to get your most restful sleep through those instructional lectures. Is there something about geography that could actually teach us about the character of God?
While God’s complete character is infinitely unknowable to us (Deuteronomy 29:29), God has revealed aspects of His character most exactly through His Son and His Word, but also in many ways through nature and even geography. The following geographical description provides an amazing example of how two well-known bodies of water in the Bible serve to display a unique aspect of God’s character.
There are two major bodies of water in the land where Jesus walked. One is the Sea of Galilee, a beautiful lake 13 miles long and 7 miles wide filled with fish and surrounded by lush foliage. The other body of water is the Dead Sea, 50 miles long and 11 miles wide, the shoreline of which is 1300 feet below sea level. Seven million tons of water evaporate from the Dead Sea every day. The saline or salt content of the water of the Dead Sea ranges from 26-35%, making it 10 times saltier than the oceans of the world. There’s no seaweed or plants of any kind in or around the water. There are no fish or any kind of swimming, squirming creatures living in or near the water. As a matter of fact, what you’ll see on the shores of the Sea is white, crystals of salt covering EVERYTHING. According to extremescience.com, fish accidentally swimming into the waters from one of the several freshwater streams that feed the Sea are killed instantly, their bodies quickly coated with a preserving layer of salt crystals and then tossed onto shore by the wind and waves. Both the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are fed by the Jordan River There is really only one difference between these two bodies of water, really only one thing that causes the Sea of Galilee to be beautiful and alive while the Dead Sea is barren and lifeless. The Sea of Galilee has an outlet; the Dead Sea does not! Water flows through the Sea of Galilee. Water flows into the Dead Sea but not out!
One of the most well-known Bible verses in all of Scripture is John 3:16—“For God so loved the world that he gave…” God’s love, grace, and righteousness are explicitly expressed through His deliberate act of giving. The Bible communicates God’s giving nature by stating, “he himself [God] gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). Elsewhere it is written, “God…richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1Timothy 6:17) and “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). In fact, one would be hard-pressed to ignore the expression of God’s generosity on every page of Scripture!
While we are made in the image of God and are being transformed into the image of Christ each day (2 Corinthians 3:18), our sin natures fight against the generosity to which we are called. We selfishly suppose that the things we have come from us, and we struggle against giving it to anyone else. We spend on ourselves and our own, believing it will result in what is best. However, as the geography of Israel’s two main bodies of water illustrate, a reservoir that only collects, yet never dispenses, eventually erodes that body. Paul warned of the dangers of tightfistedness when he wrote “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9). How foolish that we spend so much energy in the attempts to be rich when God has deemed it so perilous! Most believe monetary riches to be a blessing from the Lord while Scripture maintains just the opposite!
God longs to give us life full of productivity for His glory and the good of those around us. It is through the generosity of giving that we discover God meeting every one of our needs. Let us search for ways that we can express the character of God through the generosity of our giving.
Jason