11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Is it not easy for us to question and quibble with Jesus? As His believers all the promises of Scripture are ours yet, like this woman at the well, our faith often questions His ability or His veracity or His compassion or His love. If we do not see a visible sign of how Jesus will accomplish a promise we often dismiss it. Our understanding of His ability to procure a promise is inconsequential yet unfortunately, we lean all too often on our own veiled wisdom. Scripture tells us we are to acknowledge His ways:
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Prov 3:5-6 (NIV)
“Our misgivings begin within ourselves when we tell Jesus that our circumstances are just a little too difficult for Him. We say, ‘It’s easy to say, ‘Trust in the Lord,’ but a person has to live; and besides, Jesus has nothing with which to draw water – no means to be able to give us these things.’ If we are honest, we will admit that we never have misgivings or doubts about ourselves, because we know exactly what we are capable or incapable of doing. But we do have misgivings about Jesus. My misgivings arise from the fact that I search within to find how He will do what He says.” Oswald Chambers
Questioning God is certainly not new. Satan took this tactic to entice Eve with the forbidden fruit and unfortunately she fell for the bait hook line and sinker:
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" Gen 3:1 (NIV)
In our verses for today, Jesus spoke figuratively to the woman while the woman took Him literally questioning His ability to retrieve water from such a deep well as Jacob’s. Unbeknownst to our protagonist, the depth of Jacob’s well was nothing in comparison to the depth of the “wells” of her own human heart to which Jesus was referring. As we allow Him to draw out of our wells of hurt or disappointment or need or desires or insecurities or cold hearts or whatever our wells might be, He replenishes them with the “living water” of the precious Holy Spirit filling and healing us from within. Indeed, says Jesus, it is the spring of water which will take us into eternal life. Praise Him! Jesus knows that apart from this we are all thirsty and are all in need of this “living water”. We try to fill what is drawn from our wells with all sorts of things that will never totally satisfy. Contrast this with the ‘living water’ Jesus offers in which, we are told, partakers will never thirst again.
37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. John 7:37-39 (NIV)
Satisfaction – is there not a wonderful sweetness to that word? Look around at the unsatisfied. We are ever craving beings and yet all the creature comforts of this temporal world are imperfect and not lasting. Look how hard man works to achieve an end to his fleshly appetite while all the while singing “I can’t get no satisfaction” (I couldn’t resist myself!). The world yields but a transient satisfaction yet Jesus says I am offering to you what will truly satisfy – believe Me!
17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. Rev 22:17 (NIV)
“I send forth the river of life now to refresh and bring life to those who thirst after Me. I dry up the streams of inspiration before the feet of the proud. Those who glory in their own thoughts shall not drink. Those who pursue the paths of human reason shall be as a desert. I Myself am the direct source and the only source of eternal life. Every other well is dry. Every other pursuit is vain. But you shall be a fountain flowing forth whose streams shall not fail, for I, the Lord your God, dwell in the midst of you.” Frances L. Roberts
“Come, Thou fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, Mount of God’s unchanging love. Oh, to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.” Robert Robinson