Not long ago we woke up having no water. So I went out to see if I could find a problem. I investigated the two most obvious things - loss of power and ants in the switch contacts. For those not familiar with Florida living, yes ants in the contacts is a thing. In fact, it’s a fairly common thing on wells. I've even had ants get in the contacts of an air conditioner and stop it from working.
We had power and we didn’t have ants. My water well guy came out in the afternoon, and just before he arrived, the well kicked on. He concluded there was a tree frog hidden under the switch, which I had missed. It was fried, died, and laid to the side. Yeah…tree frogs are a thing in Florida too.
Being without water for half of the day reminded me again that we’re rich. The well not pumping is a rich problem. Soon after that happened, I replaced a ground fault outlet for a church member. The ground fault not working is a rich problem. The car not running, the air conditioning breaking, or the lawnmower being down are all rich problems. The fact is there are people around our world who don’t have wells, electricity, air conditioning, or lawnmowers. For that matter, they don't even have lawns.
Think about this. According to The Global Burden of Disease, unsafe drinking water is the cause of 1.2 million deaths every year. At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we were told to wash our hands often. Unfortunately 30% of the people in the world could not wash their hands with soap and water within their dwellings. Thirty percent! That's roughly 2.1 billion people!
We are blessed beyond words. We need to wake up every day and thank the Lord for all the good stuff we get to have and enjoy. We also need to remember that when we stand before the Lord, our riches won’t count for anything whatsoever. Death levels the playing field.
That’s kind of what Proverbs 22:2 says. “The rich and the poor have this in common, The Lord is the maker of them all.”
We generally view our wealth by comparing ourselves to the wealthiest people in the world. We then conclude we’re poor. I think we will be more grateful every single day by realizing that with food on the table, a car to drive, a little money in the bank, and clean drinking water coming out of our faucets, from a material standpoint, we’re some of the richest people on the planet.
The next time something quits working just remind yourself you have a "rich" problem.
