Many years ago I was on a backpacking trip with a friend in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It had been a very dry summer, even in that green place, and we began to run out of water. Since we are both students of the Bible, we thought about its examples of God's care for people and felt sure that we would be provided for, as well.
Just as our water was about gone, we found a small, running stream. It wasn't huge, but it was sufficient. And we were grateful.
After a week in the wilderness, we went to a restaurant for lunch and ordered water, milk, juice, and soft drinks. We were delighted to be back in the land of plenty of liquid—and liquid we didn't have to work for. We could just order it, and it would come. To my surprise, when the drinks arrived, I didn't actually feel any more provided for than I had when I was in the wilderness. Only then did I realize that during every step of our trip we really had been guided, and at each point when we had needed water, it had been right there, on or near our path.
