Living Water
“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’” - John 4:10
We all know what it’s like to be thirsty. Just writing that sentence makes me reach for my water! In John 4, Jesus himself is thirsty after traveling, and as he stops to rest at a well, he encounters a Samaritan woman. Little did she know, this surprising conversation would change the course of her entire life.
The Samaritan people were a people group hated by the Jews for their religious beliefs and historical struggles with the Israelites. Most Jews wanted nothing to do with Samaritans, yet when Jesus met a woman of this group, he asked her for a drink. She was so surprised that she said, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (v.9). Yet Jesus wanted more than a physical drink of water at this moment; he wanted her to encounter his love, forgiveness, and life.
Jesus replies to her, ““If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water […] Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (v. 10, 13-14).
Isn’t that just like Jesus?
Throughout scripture, we see him meet people where they are (hungry, sick, broken, etc.) and while He meets their physical needs, He also meets their deepest need of all: a relationship with Him. Jesus promises the woman at the well (and therefore us) living water, the gift of His Spirit, the comfort of being secure and satisfied in Him.
When Jesus becomes the well that we drink from, we no longer have to seek out other sources of “life” that time and time again fall short. We are filled with the love of God and able to overflow that love to others in the world. What an incredible gift!