Would You Trust Desert Pete?

Picture a prospector trudging along a desert trail, exhausted, hot, thirsty, his canteen empty.
Suddenly he comes to an old water well pump. Tied to the handle of the pump is an old baking powder can, in which he finds an old, yellowed letter. He takes the letter from the can and reads it carefully:

This pump is alright as of June, 1932. I put a new sucker washer on it and it ought to last fer five or more years. But the washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed. Under the white rock I buried a bottle of water, out of the sun and corked up. There’s enuff water in it to prime the pump, but not if you go and drink some first.
Pour about one fourth and let her soak and wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast and pump like crazy. You’ll git water. The well has never run dry. Have faith. When you git watered up, fill the bottle and put it back like you found it fer the next feller.
Desert Pete

PS Don’t go drinkin up the water first. Prime the pump with it and you’ll git all you can hold.

What the prospector does after he reads this letter will tell what sort of person he is - a person of faith or suspicion.

Isn’t this a first-class lesson in faith? Just see that exhausted, thirsty traveler looking at a cup of clean, clear water. And he must not drink it? Not a drop of it? Not if he wants more!

Here is faith applied. The traveler must have faith to use the water in his hands to pull more water from the depths of the well. Otherwise that cup is all he will get.

But how can he stop thinking: “Suppose I use this water in the bottle to prime the pump, then pump for all I’m worth, and no water comes? I’ve lost even the water I could have had! What guarantee do I have that Desert Pete is right? What proof do I have that there is any water in the well?”

What would you do if you were dying of thirst and came across that pump, Pete’s letter, and the bottle of water under the rock? What would I do? I don’t know. Certainly I would think it through. What if it were all a monumental hoax? What if the well had gone dry in the meantime?

Faith always involves an element of risk.

Still, we must take that step of faith. We must dump the water that is in our hands (our link with this present world), trusting all to Christ who has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” If we give what we have at hand, He has assured us that we shall have more, abundantly more. His water will be in us “a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.”

But it takes faith. Everyone who has served God in every age has had to have faith. How much more we who are living in an age of atheism and agnosticism. We who are living at a time when moral decline is rampant are highly influenced by it.

It takes great faith, just like dumping that precious cup of water. Desert Pete was looking squarely at human nature when he added that postscript on his note: “Don’t go drinkin up the water first. Prime the pump with it and you’ll git all you can hold.” The thirsty traveler had to give up something before he could get something. In the same way, you and I must give up something - our pride, our self-will, our doubts, our love of this world - before we see any returns. But when the returns come, they will be astounding! Those who receive God’s new birth and eternal gifts will be “abundantly satisfied” as they drink from the river of [His] pleasures,” and those blessings will last for evermore” (Psalm 36:7,9; 16:11).

In John chapter 4, Jesus talks of thirst and water to a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He said to the woman, “Would you give me a drink of water?”. . . The woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking ME for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water. “. . . Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this natural water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst - not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life” (John 4:7,9,10,13,14 Message Bible).

Yes, there is water in His well - an abundance of it. Prime the pump, and discover it for yourself!
Here’s the issue: Immediate gratification versus future fulfillment. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, many say. But Jesus said, “Whosoever would save his life will lose it.”

Doesn’t Desert Pete’s instruction have an application for Christians? It is the lesson of risk taking which lies at the heart of faith. To use the words of Desert Pete, “You’ll git water. The well has never run dry. Have faith. Pour out the little you have - and pump like crazy.”

That is, briefly stated, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a beautiful composite of faith, hope and love. “Pour out the little you have” (give up what you have at hand, what you can see and hold) and “pump like crazy” (work enthusiastically at the way God directs, giving all you have and are - and God will reward you with your needs and satisfaction and joy that never runs out).

To pour out the little you have “and pump like crazy” is an act of faith because it is following the example of Abel, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and all the others who have gone before us. All these took risks, poured out what they could see in the hope of things they could not see. “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They didn‘t receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth” (Hebrews 11:13 NIV).

Just as the traveler had to have faith in the process instructed by Desert Pete, we must have faith in the process that God is working out, faith in Christ to strengthen us in our weaknesses. It is great faith because it involves hope, especially that part of hope which is able to see the unseen because God has promised it. “If we hope for that which we don‘t see, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:25).

It seems very likely that that thirsty traveler could not have summoned the courage to pour out the little he had and “pump like crazy” if, in the imagination of his mind, he didn’t hear the gurgling or see the gush of the cool water drawn from the depths by the pump. Likewise, a clear vision of the future is essential if we would truly believe God, and act upon our belief. Faith encourages us to take risks and depend on what is yet to be.

But we must have more than faith, and more than hope. There must also be the commitment to give ourselves in obedience to God, which is the third word: love.

Yes, I believe I would trust Desert Pete’s instructions, because I would have to believe that no man, especially a grizzled old desert prospector who had known the pangs of hunger and thirst, would trick a man to death on those burning sands! There is some kind of a love of fellow-man there.

We who have put our faith in the indwelling Christ have a lot in common with the exhausted traveler who comes to the pump in the desert. We haven’t seen anyone before us drawing water from the well. Yet we know that God will not lie. What God has promised He will do.

As we mature and absorb the love of God into our souls, we receive the only force that can move us to give our best. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

Desert Pete left more than a note: He left the gift of life to any who might be following him through the desert and not be able to make it without water. His message was life. And isn’t that the real value of the message God has left us? But like the note from Desert Pete, it must be heeded before one can receive the benefits. We must give up to gain, surrender to inherit, “pour out the little we have.”

Christ’s Gospel is like the note from Desert Pete - it is LIFE to those who heed. Anyone who accepts Christ’s death on the cross as forgiveness and punishment for his sins, and determines to make Christ the Savior and Lord of his life, RECEIVES A NEW BIRTH - A NEW LIFE - A NEW CONTROLLING NATURE - THE DIVINE NATURE OF GOD!
In the words of the song, “That’s When He Steps In”:

When you have a work to do,
and the task ahead seems bigger than you,
that’s when He steps in.

When you know in your heart that God’s command
takes more than can be done by man,
that’s when He steps in.

He sees you at the point of your need –
He sees you at the point of crossing your Red Sea,
and the moment you call, when you’ve given your all, HE STEPS IN.

And He’ll say, “What’s that you have in your hand?
I can use it, if you’re willing to lose it.
I’ll take the little you have and make it grand!
I am El-Shaddai, and I‘ll more than supply your needs!

When all you have is oil in a jar
and that’s a reflection of where you are,
that’s when He steps in.

A little boy’s lunch of fish and bread
is all you have for the need ahead
that’s when He steps in.

Let Him take it and bless it and break it and give it.
He’ll multiply it in the moment you live it.
And in the moment you call, when you’ve given your all, HE STEPS IN!

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