There are times when scripture makes little sense to me and then there are those times, when it is so utterly clear that I am amazed I have not understood it before. That experience is what brings this blog about today.

John 7:37-38 “On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” I have read this verse many times this week, as it has been a key verse in the daily devotional I use. I have looked up cross references and corresponding scripture because I felt there was something that I was missing. A level of understanding that I just wasn’t getting. More than once this week I have got up from my Bible study time somewhat confused and frustrated.

Then today I read this passage from John 4:13-14 “Jesus answered, “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.” And that is when the missing pieces of understanding began to fall into place.

The passage from John 4 comes from Jesus asking a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. It’s important to keep in mind the background of this story. The Samaritan woman had had five husbands and now was with yet another man who she was not married to. She was trapped in a cycle of looking to men to provide meaning and fulfillment in her life. She kept going back to the “well” of men to satisfy her thirst. Jesus is saying, stop drinking from that well, it will never satisfy you. Instead come to me, the well that provides living water and complete satisfaction. Which brings us back to John 7 when Jesus says “if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink”. It’s an open invitation for us all.

The more I thought about these passages and what was being revealed to me, I began to wonder what “wells” have I been going to looking for meaning and fulfillment? There are many I have tried over the years ranging from money and possessions, to success from a worldly perspective, to friendships and even ministry. One of the realizations I had was that once you get a taste from some of these “wells”, it only makes you thirsty for me. A little financial success and freedom might be nice but it ultimately brings a craving for more and more. I find myself spending much too much time thinking about money, how to get more and what I could get or do with that money. I consider different jobs, additional jobs, schemes, etc..  I become willing to sacrifice what I know I have been called to. The problem is I’m not drinking from the right well!

This line of thinking led me back to a passage in Ephesians 5 that one of our youth leaders spoke about earlier this week. Verses 15-17 “Pay careful attention, then, to how you live—not as unwise people but as wise— making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”  We have a powerful and sneaky enemy that would love nothing more than to keep us going back to the same life stealing “wells” this world provides. But we have an even more powerful God- One that offers and provides a well of “living water flowing from deep within”.  We have the Holy Spirit of the Living God inside of us! Jesus said it himself, “come drink and never be thirsty again”. What would it take for us to take that offer to heart and begin looking to Jesus only? What is it that keeps us from being satisfied with Him and what He provides? Why is it that we think we need that need that one thing (car, job, amount in our bank account, position, etc.) to satisfy us? The writing’s on the wall, whatever “it” is will not be enough, but will only make us thirsty again.

One last thought from Mark 4:19 “but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”  

The choice is yours, which well are you going to drink from? The life stealing one, or the life giving one?