Hi and welcome to Van Life Devotion. This is the famous Nile River in Egypt. Wow, what a river – thought to be the longest in the world, though the Amazon might be longer, just. The Nile stretches a massive 6,695 km through 11 countries. What I didn’t realise is that this river flows north from east-central Africa and into the Mediterranean Sea.
For thousands of years the Nile has provided Egyptians with rich fertile lands. Dark sediment that the Nile's waters carried from East Africa northward are deposited in Egypt along its riverbanks. That surge of water and nutrients turned the Nile Valley into productive farmland and made it possible for Egyptian civilization to develop in the midst of a desert. Every August, this river would flood and when it did, all the nutrient-rich soil carried in the water spread across the riverbanks, leaving a thick, moist mud… Perfect for growing crops!
The Nile was also used for transportation for ancient Egyptians. They were skilled boat and ship builders. Artwork from the Old Kingdom reveal boats transporting cattle, vegetables, fish, bread, and wood. Workers also transported massive blocks of limestone on wooden boats along the Nile, and then routed the blocks through a canal system to the site where the pyramid was being constructed.
Today, the Nile no longer floods each year because of the Aswan High Dam that was built in 1970. This huge dam controls the flow of the river to generate electricity, irrigate (water) farms and provide homes with drinking water. This fascinating river remains an invaluable source of life for Egyptians to this day. More than 95% of the country’s population depend on its water and live within a few miles of the riverbanks.
This Nile River is such a source of life. One day Jesus struck up a conversation with a Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well – that’s the Jacob who with his family came to live here in Egypt because of the famine in Canaan – what Jesus first discuss was living water. This is what he said in John chapter 4 verses 13 to 14, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14 NIV).
When we thirst for God and His Ways, He will quench our desires with spiritual water that continues to flow into us for all of eternity. We well up with hope, peace, joy, security, assurance, faith because of our faith in Christ – the source for all life.
When king David was in the Judean Desert he wrote, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water” (Psalms 63:1 NIV). David recognises that God quenches His needs.
This beautiful Nile River has been the source of life for thousands of years. The water that Jesus offers provides salvation that lasts for eternity. Jesus says, and this is an invitation, “To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Revelation 21:6 NIV). If you are thirsting for something more in life, ask Jesus to quench your thirst with salvation, peace, hope and joy.
Let’s pray:
God of Life. Thank you for creating this amazing river that has been a source of life for many generations. Grant to us Your water where we will never need to thirst again.
O God, preserve us who travel; surround us with your loving care; protect us from every danger; and bring us in safety to our journey’s end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
David Moyes
