Chasing Water

By Reverend Michael Farias

Yesterday, I saw them drawing water from the well.

I watched as the young women labored to get water into their waterpots, and then they labored even more to carry the water to its destination.  Water is heavy, and these were not small waterpots.  Chasing water has been a major task for mankind since the beginning of time.

As I write this, I am in Ndola, a rather rural small city in Zambia, Africa.  I am visiting Hope Village, a ministry dedicated to taking care of orphans and providing education to neighboring children.  Some of these young students walk more than 30 minutes just to get to school.  If it were not for Hope Village, these kids would have no schooling opportunity.

Witnessing this water drawing duty made me think of the Bible story of the woman at the well.  It’s found in the Gospel of John.  Jesus, tired from a journey, sits to rest by a well.  A woman shows up to do her water acquisition chores, and Jesus asks her for a drink.   

John 4:9 nkjv Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

What we’re going to focus on here is the role reversal that causes the woman to thirst for something more than water.  

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “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.”  

The woman is somewhat confused.  She sees that Jesus does not have a pot with which to draw the water, yet he is offering her a drink of living water, if only she would ask.  So she asks, but she asks the wrong question.  She asks, “from where are you going to get this water?”  The where is not as important as the what.  What is it that this living water will do for you?  Jesus points out the contrast between the water she gets and the water he gives.

13Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

So now who’s thirsty?  Suddenly Jesus is no longer asking for water, he’s offering  water, living water.  Suddenly too, the woman is no longer interested in her ability to get water from the well, she is now interested in getting the living water Jesus is offering.  She understands that this will be a fountain that flows from within her, and will quench any thirst she will ever have for anything.

15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

She saw the benefits of receiving the living water: she would no longer thirst, and she would not have to seek to quench her thirst any more.

Jesus is still offering this living water today, and all one has to do is ask for it.

Open your Bible and begin to experience the gushing spring of Living Water within.

Just one more thing:  

28 The woman then left her waterpot…

Have a Greater Than Gold Day!