In my youth, a hot summer day would bring out a craving for a Fanta grape soda. Nothing quenched my thirst and sugar craving quite like that soft drink, though a cherry coke icee came in a close second. If I was desperate or near death, I would submit to a cool stream of water from the nearest water hose, which was the closest thing we had to bottled water.
I hate that my father missed out on the bottled-water craze. It would have damaged his favorite argument when I requested a soda or any other drink requiring an expenditure. Every request was met with “Drink water. It’s free and good for you.”
My problem, then and now, is I don’t like water. It has only one redeeming factor: it’s wet. Otherwise, it has no taste and it makes me cough almost every time I drink it. I am not referring to a polite, casual cough. I’m talking red in the face, hock up a lung, tears in the eyes kind of cough. I used to attempt drinking water while hunting, until the day I ran everything out of the woods with a coughing fit. Even the ants scurried away before I was finished.
To top it off, I rarely detect thirst. Some suggest I may be part camel, while my wife says my body is so accustomed to drought that dehydration seems normal. Whatever the case, H2O is a “no go” for me.
Just as thirst is normal for most folks, it is also normal to have a thirst for spiritual belonging and assurance. Such people are sometimes referred to as seekers. In my search for spiritual relevance, I found Jesus to be more satisfying than the coldest grape soda.
However, from time to time, I get this gnawing sensation that draws me back with a growing thirst for more. That’s a good thing, but it may not be the best thing. I recently read about the woman at the well, in the gospel of John, and I was slowed in my reading as I came to the conversation Jesus had with this Samaritan lady.
She is shocked that He would ask her for a drink of water, defying all cultural norms of the time. He answers her dismay with a simple response: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)
Jesus goes on to assure her that His water would cause her to thirst no more and that it would grow into a river within her. While I am glad that for any thirst that sends me to Him, I would rather have the portion He offers. Never thirsty again. Satisfied. Complete in Him.
Perhaps I sometimes miss the first part of Jesus’ statement to the woman at the well: “If you knew the gift of God, you would ask…” I don’t know about you, but I never leave a gift unopened. I don’t work or plan for them, I tear into them, as wrapping paper flies in every direction, anticipating what is hidden within. That’s how you handle a gift.
In your life, your thoughts and free time, is Jesus a gift to you? Or, has He become a religious principle upon which you loosely place your eternal hope? I believe my recent thirst is a result of becoming complacent and self focused. If you are in my boat, join me in reversing course. It will be easy to determine how successful we are. There will be a mess of “wrapping paper” all around us and any thought of thirst will be forgotten.
The woman at the well is our proof. Once Jesus becomes her gift, she runs back home and shares her knowledge of Him so convincingly that the whole town goes out to meet Him. And that water pot that she carried to the well to fill is probably still there, empty, because she forgot all about it. If we get close enough to Him, we can forget ours, too.