princess-in-waiting:

All you who are thirsty,
come to the water!
You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat;
Come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!

~Isaiah 55:1

This passage has stood out to me for some time. It is part of the prophecy towards the end of the book of Isaiah.
The first line “All you who are thirsty, come to the water” has a lot of meaning. Apart for the pure theological meaning which any good commentary will be able to give you, I will comment on the significance of water. Most of us in the Western World, especially the United States, don’t often think of how important water really is. Most people don’t drink just plain water… ever. We are more obsessed with soda and juice (and in Wisconsin, milk), not to mention all of the alcoholic beverages. Sure, we are told in school that water makes up a majority of our bodies and without water we would not be able to survive. But really, how many people will grab a glass of water when they are thirsty instead of a can of soda or a bottle of juice? It seems to me that our ‘advanced’ world is forgetting how important water, plain water, is. There are beverage companies that make millions by making water taste ‘good’ or adding vitamins they say we need to live. Really, is all this necessary? Do we need water to taste good?

The phrase “come without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk” stood out to me as a child. I grew up in Wisconsin, the Dairy State. My family of four (my mom, my dad, my sister, and I) go through over a gallon of milk a day. As children, my mom would give us milk rather than juice because of the high sugar content in juice. As a child I always though that God was just going to buy us all milk for the rest of our lives. I though God must be rich to be able to buy that many gallons of milk! Now I realize that this is a hint at, a reference to “the land flowing with milk and honey” that was promised to the Israelites when they left Egypt.

(Source: adventuringafar)