Living Water

I am sometimes terrible at staying hydrated. There is so much to do and I am usually flitting from one task to another and forget to have a drink. As a result of this never ending busyness and lack of hydration, it is easy to develop a brain fog and feel dry. This is often what happens in the spiritual realm too. We can become so busy from living and we end up tired, weary, parched and spiritually dry. We need to know how to re-dig the wells that opens up a spring of living water within us to keep us refreshed and replenished.

When we are too busy, we settle looking for quick fixes, self help and pleasures to fill us but it is not sufficient to replenish us. We still come up empty and dry. The people of Judah were guilty of this too – they rejected God who is the source of living water and instead dug their own cisterns. God reminded them that He is the spring of living water and the cisterns we dig for ourselves end up broken and leak. This was all too common in the hill country of Judah where earthquakes and tremors caused the cisterns built to hold water to crack and leak water and this was a metaphor that they understood all too well.
Jeremiah 2:13
¹³ “My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

The Samaritan woman too was dry, isolated, broken and leaking hidden pain. She had developed a reputation in her village as someone who had had five husbands and now she was living with someone who was not her husband. Usually women went in groups to collect water for the household early morning or at dusk avoiding the heat and to have an opportunity to socialise. Not this Samaritan woman. Hers was a lonely walk of shame to the well at noon in the heat to avoid the other village woman due to her reputation. She was broken and looked for satisfaction in all the wrong places. Then it all changed one day when she met Jesus!

Jesus was different. This woman was surprised when Jesus asked her for a drink despite the fact that Jews usually the religious types like Jesus do not normally associate with Samaritans much less with a woman and that too of questionable character. Jesus offers her “living water”, water that will never run out but welling up on the inside of her giving her eternal life and completely satisfying her. This woman cries out for this living water and also runs back to the village to let others know of this!
John 4:13-15
¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ 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.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Could it be that we too have forgotten how to draw this living water from God? Could it be that we too have forsaken the source of this living water and are drawn to cisterns that don’t satisfy our deepest longing and thirsts? Could it be the reason why our lives are often marked by the fog of confusion instead of clarity, fog of the meaninglessness instead of purpose, fog of conflict and stress instead of peace and harmony? It is time we too forsake the broken cisterns and come back to the living water that God offers. Just like Isaac who re-dug the wells that Abraham originally dug because they were blocked by the Philistines, we too need to re-dig the wells and throw out the blockages that prevent us from receiving and experiencing the fullness of the life giving eternal living water that is available to us. It is time to re-dig the wells of reading God’s word, praying fervent prayers, walking in faith and claiming all that God has promised us!
Genesis 26:18
¹⁸ Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.

Are you feeling dry and parched today? Have you been finding your answer in stagnant waters from a cistern when fresh living water of God is available to you? Jesus wants to take us out of the spiritual desert we find ourselves in. The Holy Spirit promises us living water in our soul that we can draw upon continuously so that we are not parched and dry. This journey of our life is a walk of faith and is not possible without access to fresh living water drawn regularly. Take deep drinks of Him! Drink all you can get of Him, everyday!
Isaiah 12:3
³ With joy you will draw water
    from the wells of salvation.