Choosing Tap.

About five or six years ago, a nationwide study was performed by several microbiologists from the University of New Hampshire as well as Yale University’s School of Medicine, as to whether or not bottled water was safer, healthier, and indeed more pleasant to drink than tap water.

With sales in the U.S. alone topping $100 billion each year, accounting for nearly 29% of the entire liquid beverage industry, a number of environmentally-focused organizations felt compelled to implore members of the political and scientific community to investigate if in fact bottled water should be considered the trusted option its manufacturers have so effectively advertised it to be.

Their findings were quite astonishing.

Four of the five top leading brands were found to contain ‘excessive chemicals’ and bacteria, and nearly 20% more chlorine than that of tap water. Several ‘spring water’ brands were in fact found to contain water from industrial facility parking lots, and not the prestigious Swiss alps and glaciers illustrated on many of their labels. In fact, after performing several ‘blind’ taste tests in cities like New York, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, avid fans and supporters of bottled water often chose the taste of tap water over their favorite bottled brands.

After reading through this study, I began to ask myself how is it at all possible for a multi-billion dollar industry to continue to persuade so many of us to purchase and support a product that has been proven to be of less quality than its chief competitor? What is it about ‘bottled water’ that would lead us to pay nearly 2,000 times its actual cost in order to drink?

I think I’ve pinpointed at least one big reason why; not a very scientific reason, but perhaps one that has some spiritual implications. Here it is:

We have been convinced that drinking from a source that appears NEW, is far better than one that appears OLD.

In Genesis 26:18-19v, we find these words: “So Isaac moved away to the Gerar Valley, where he set up their tents and settled down. He reopened the wells his father had dug, which the Philistines had filled in after Abraham’s death. Isaac also restored the names Abraham had given them. Isaac’s servants also dug in the Gerar Valley and discovered a well of fresh water.”

Isn’t it interesting that Isaac, at perhaps the very prime of his life, chose NOT to spend his days searching for a NEW glacier or spring to ‘bottle’ his own water from, but rather to dig and ‘tap into’ a source of water that was in fact very OLD; a well that belonged to his father Abraham.

Instead of pursuing the fame that often comes with venturing off on our own, Isaac decided that tapping into the resources of those who had gone on before him was much more important than establishing a legacy of his own.

We are living in the most entrepreneurial society ever know to man. Everyone is now interested in being FIRST. Baton passing now seems to be a thing of the past. Being a part of something fresh and NEW is now in, and anything that appears to be OLD or archaic we now try to avoid at all cost.

It’s no wonder why the notion of drinking ‘tap water’ was so easily defeated by the commercial appeal of the bottled water industry.

We have been convinced that drinking from a source that appears NEW, is far better than one that appears OLD.

Isn’t it interesting however, that tap water, because it is regulated by the EPA and other municipal mandates, is tested for contaminants nearly a hundred times per month, while bottled water is tested no more than once a week. In fact, a number of leading bottled water manufacturers are in fact now simply providing their consumers with ‘distilled’ tap water.

Of course, with the same beautiful glacier on the label!

Perhaps there is something we all can learn from the life of Isaac. Maybe there are moments in our lives when we just need to choose to TAP in. What if all the digging we are doing to make our own name great never provides the quality of water that can be found in the wells of those who have gone before us? What nuggets of wisdom and blessings are you and I missing out on because we are consumed with going FIRST, without ever understanding the value of going SECOND?

Something to think about.

*Sidenote – found this clip online the other day. Interesting stuff.