The Great Depression made
1932 a difficult time to open a new business. But Ted and Dorothy Husted bought
the little drug store in their town of Wall, South Dakota anyway. Grasshoppers
had eaten all the crops in the region. That part of the state was a dust bowl
because of a long drought and temperatures (often for ten days at a time) climbed
to over 100 degrees. Their little drugstore was not making it, but the resourceful
couple wasn’t ready to quit.
One hot afternoon with no
customers in sight Dorothy went home to rest but she couldn’t sleep because of
the constant noise of traffic going by on the highway near their house. In that
moment she realized that most of these travelers were hot and tired. She went
back to the store and worked out a simple marketing strategy to attract customers.
Ted went 25 miles in each
direction and put up signs that read, FREE ICE WATER AT THE WALL DRUG STORE,
Wall, S.D. They put up signs at 10 miles; and at 5 miles the sign read: HOLD
ON! IT’S ONLY 5 MILES TO THE WALL DRUG STORE AND FREE ICE WATER.
Before he even got back to
the store people were stopping for free water! Some visitors came for the water
but bought ice cream and other things. The simple offer of “FREE WATER” worked
and soon the Husteds struggled to keep up with the constant flow of people
into their store.
Today, signs are still posted
all over the country telling you just how far it is to free ice water at the
Wall, S.D. drugstore. On a hot summer day thousands of people crowd the old-timey
drugstore that covers most of a city block. Amazingly, Wall, SD has never had
more than 800 residents! It remains the most spectacularly, successful
drugstore in the entire industry.
Here’s the thing—druggists
had been handing out free water for generations. But Ted and Dorothy were the
first people who ever thought of advertising it.[1]
The Husteds were on to
something that God patented long ago—the offer of free water to the thirsty.
·
In Genesis 16:7,
an angel of the Lord found an exhausted Hagar at a spring where he encouraged
her with a promise that God would do something amazing with her broken life.
·
In Exodus 17 the thirsty
Israelites complained of cottonmouth. Moses petitioned God and he was told to
strike a rock with his rod—the result was a stream in the desert!
·
One of the many miracles
performed by the prophet Elisha was purifying a corrupted well in the city of
Jericho (2 Kings 2:19-22).
·
Remember what
Jesus told the woman at the well of Samaria? “13 Everyone who drinks of this
water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will
give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will
become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
Charles Spurgeon wrote, “In
the wilderness, the lips become chapped; the skin is dried and burned; the
tongue is like a firebrand, and the mouth is like an oven; and the weary traveler
must drink or die. O for a draught of water there! A bag of diamonds could not
buy a drop in that land of desolation. The whole world over, there is nothing
that can save a soul apart from the grace of God. Your good works can no more
save you than the salt sea can give the sailor drink. Ceremonies can no more
fill your heart with peace and give it life, than the hot sand of the wilderness
can quench the thirst of the sunbaked pilgrim. God must lead you to the river
of eternal life flowing out of the Rock that was smitten in Jesus Christ!”[2]
FREE WATER! It sounds so
simple, but to the spiritually barren it’s the difference between life and
death. As the Gospel singers Fields of Grace say, “Preachers and teachers and believers,
we all need a drink sometime!” Are you plodding wearily through a desert right
now? Have you drank from the wells of the world, but found them to be full of brackish
water? Child of God does your soul long for a refreshing draught of living
water? The Good News is that God’s supply is available, abundant and alleviating
for all of life’s problems. -DM
[1]
Skip Heitzig, “I’ve Just Gotta’ Go to Church -- Psalm 84,” 21 September 1997, Calvary
Chapel Albuquerque <http://skipheitzig.com/teachings_view.asp?ServiceID=2016>
[2]
Charles Spurgeon, “The Water of Life,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol.
13, No. 770, <https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-water-of-life#flipbook/>
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