Never Drink Water Again

There are 783 million people without access to clean drinking water, and you can do something about it.

” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God….” — Leviticus 19:9-10

The other day, I had a long car ride ahead of me, and so I popped in some headphones, closed my eyes, and took a moment to rest. When I finally sat up, I was more thirsty than I had ever been in my entire life. It was one of those, "if I do not drink water right now, I will die," kind of moments. I couldn't find a water bottle, but there was a jug right next to me. So, I did what every desperate, thirsty person would do, and began chugging as much water as I needed to soothe my Sahara Desert of a throat.

And then it hit me.

There are people who live like this every single day. There are people who would do anything for one sip of water, who feel like they might just die at any moment, but have no access to it. There are people who hike miles and drink contaminated water, because they are desperate.

Could you imagine that--not being able to drink when you were thirsty? Not being able to eat when you were hungry? These are the simple things needed to survive, but it comes so easy to count it as a necessity, when for others it feels like a luxury. That's when the guilt settled in real strong.

I looked around at all the stuff I had been collecting. I thumbed through every piece of clothing in my closet. I calculated all the amazing trips I had been on, and what all of it had cost me. Then I thought, how many people could I feed if I stopped shopping? If I traded in one cup of coffee, to give someone a cup of water, what difference would that make?

Take a moment to think about what it would be like to never drink water again. We spend so much time complaining about what we do or don't have, or saving for all the things we want to check off on our bucket list. Meanwhile, there are 783 million people who do not have access to clean drinking water. What luxury can you sacrifice to help people simply live?