Taste & SeeSample

Living Water for Thirsty Souls

The noonday sun was as relentless as the social reproach from the village women. Balancing the stone waterpot on her shoulders, she set out on her daily trip to Jacob’s well. She had learned that it was easiest to draw water when no one else would be there, even if that meant she had to go at the hottest time of day.

But on this day, when she drew near, she saw something she never expected, a Jewish man resting by the well. Then he spoke to her and said, “Give me a drink.”

Uncomfortable with his simple request for a drink, she began to play the cards she held in her hand. First out of the deck were her gender and race cards. How could he ask her for a drink when she was a Samaritan woman? Then she played the historical and who-do-you-think-you-are cards. Jesus’ claim that he offered her living water, sounded like he was making himself out to be greater than their forefather, Jacob, who gave them the well. But Jesus responded that while Jacob’s gift of water offered temporary satisfaction, he offered an eternal fountain that never ran dry.

Like a skilled surgeon who knew right where the problem lay, Jesus cut through the woman’s rhetoric and pinpointed the precise point of her spiritual drought. Equally amazed and uncomfortable by his knowledge of her life, she kept trying to divert attention away from herself and onto current hot topics.

But no amount of card playing or sidestepping the issue was going to rescue her from dealing with her sin. She was already a worshipper, but her worship was misplaced. Her cravings for happiness and fulfillment would never be found in the arms of men, but only in a right relationship with her Creator. There was so much she didn’t know, and maybe so much she knew she needed to change in her life.

But in a final effort to divert this uncomfortable attention away from her sin, she acknowledged that someday the Messiah would come and make all things clear.

Then Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” John 4:26

The first person Jesus ever revealed his identity to was not to the religious or social elite, but to an outcast Samaritan woman.

Have you tried to drink from wells that offer temporary refreshment, only to still leave thirsty? No matter what sins lie in your past, Jesus offers you a 100% guarantee, that if you know, and ask him, you will receive the living water that only he offers.

This is the paradoxical, soul-thirst-quenching nature of living water. If you knew it’s what your parched soul needed most, why wouldn’t you ask for it? Come to the waters and drink deeply of his living water. You’ll never be thirsty again.

Food for Thought

1. The woman at the well tried her hand at cards but lost. She used gender, race, spiritual history, and religion cards to avoid dealing with her sin, but Jesus kept gently redirecting her to her biggest need which was a spiritual one. Are you similarly trying to play the cards in your hand to avoid dealing with your sin? Based on this story, what would Jesus offer to you as the remedy for your spiritual drought?
2. Did you notice that the woman went to the well with an empty bucket, but left spiritually full? And Jesus, who arrived thirsty, never got the drink he asked for, yet he said he had secret food that nourished him? How does this further demonstrate that he is living water?