In the 1970s, as a nursing student, I was required to spend time in Labor & Delivery. I so vividly remember the first birth of a human child I ever witnessed. Little by little I stepped back… until I was pressed against the farthest wall. When the little tike was swatted on the behind and began to wail, the doctor turned to me and said, “God sure is big, isn’t He?” All I could do was nod. Then he said, “They say that just as a baby is born, God presses His lips over a child’s nostrils and blows. I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but I like the sentiment.”

Think about that. Whether it’s true or not (and I kinda like to think it is), picture yourself as a newborn, God’s lips over your nostrils. The Holy Spirit (breath) of God blowing life into your being.

Without it, we could not survive. We would gasp. We would become desperate.

We would die.

Food, Water 

The people who had come to see Jesus were hungry. With there being so many of them — five thousand of them men, not counting the women and children — and with there being so little food in their possession — five loaves of bread and two fish — it seemed they’d either have to remain hungry or go home when they weren’t quite ready to do so. Jesus took the five loaves and the fish, and multiplying them to more than the crowd would need, fed the people.

From there, Jesus went off to be alone, but the people found him. As though surprised at his being there, they said, “When did you get here?”

Jesus said, “The reason you looked for me is because I fed you.”

They asked, “What must we do to do the work God has required?”

“Believe in me.”

Well… the people thought about this. In order to truly believe, wouldn’t they need a sign? After all, Moses gave the people manna. “Bread from heaven,” they called it.

“Yes,” Jesus said. “But God gave it to Moses….and I am the bread of life. If you come to me and believe in me you will never grow hungry or thirsty again.”^[3]

In another story — a beloved story — Jesus meets a woman at the well in Samaria during the noon hour, a time when women didn’t usually go to the well. But she was something of a scarlet woman. Being thirsty, Jesus asked her to draw water for him. The woman was dumbfounded. After all, he was Jewish and Jewish men didn’t speak to Samaritan women. Jesus said to her, “If you knew who was sitting here before you, you’d ask him for a drink and he’d give you living water…water that, when consumed, will leave you so satisfied, you’ll never grow thirsty again.”