Diamonds and Gold

Let's quickly set up the scene from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. The "Penguins of Madagascar" have hijacked multiple safari jeeps in order to use spare parts to fix an airplane, rendering tourists from New York stranded without transportation in the African reserve. Panicked, the tourists go on to erect a makeshift dam to hold as much drinking water from a nearby stream as possible. As a consequence, the watering hole that nourished the main characters and their newly found herd dries up completely. The picture below shows a failed effort in digging a well to see if they can find a source of groundwater. There's not a trace to be found. "Any water?" asks one character, to the reply from another, "No just more diamonds and gold."

That quote is supposed to make the viewer of the movie chuckle, but it rings with truth. Dying of thirst, and with no water in sight, what would be the most precious thing for one to find: A big plate of nachos? The Mona Lisa? A neon yellow Lambo? TWO big plates of nachos? Tempting, but it's definitely water.

A folk music group called The Kingston Trio released a parabolic song in 1963 called "Desert Pete." It's about a man who is in dire need of water while walking through a desert and suddenly comes across a water pump with a tin can and a note inside wrapped around it. "Dear traveler, do not despair. Dig below and you will find a bottle of water. You have surely by now tried to work the pump, and have seen that it was dry. Pour the water from this bottle gently around the cylinder and keep pumping. You will be very tempted to drink this bottle, but you will only become thirsty again soon. Trust me when I say there will be more, as this priming of the pump will cause suction of the ground water below. Follow the instructions and you will have all of the nourishment that you need. PS: Do not forget to refill the bottle and to bury it for the next passerby.”

This is a parable of life, as we’re all walking through a similar situation: your choice is to consume your life onto yourself and soon be empty again, or to put your hands into those of God who gives you living water of salvation so that your soul will never thirst again (John 4:13-14; John 7:37-39). When we wake up to reality and see that we without salvation are walking dead people, we see that doing anything else other than accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior would be like finding diamonds and gold (something we would otherwise have been excited about and thought was highly important) when all we desperately need to live is water. And when you find that living water, just as the desert traveler, you will become an instrument to help give that nourishment to the next passerby.

Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff writes: "When we have overcome absence with phone calls, winglessness with airplanes, summer heat with air conditioning - when we have overcome all these and much more besides, then there will abide two things with which we must cope: the evil in our hearts and death." God is the solution to both. And you don't have to take my word for it. Ask Christ if He is who He claims to be; to reveal Himself to you; to save you. You will find Him, you will personally come to know Him, and you will receive the “glue” that puts life’s ultimate questions together. Without God, we all have a dreary sense of immense emptiness that cannot be quenched; no amount of diamonds and gold will suffice. Just as your physical self needs life-saving nourishment, God promises that He will give you living water so that you will never thirst in your soul ever again.

Without God, as Bobby Boucher from the movie The Waterboy once said, "You people drinkin' the wrong water."