The Well Never Runs Dry: Making the choice between contaminated or living water.
As a little girl I spent a great deal of time with my maternal grandparents. My beverage of choice as a kid was Granny’s sweet tea. It was SO delicious! But on scorching summer days after hours of running the bases, riding bikes, swinging, sliding, and running some more, there was nothing like a glass of iced water fresh from the tap.
My grandparents had well water. I remember it tasting better than the city water we had at my house. Let’s be real, everything was better at Granny’s house. I remember how cold the water would get, especially in the winter. It was fresh. It quenched the thirst of the sweltering summer days. It provided the perfect hydration for my exhausted body!
Recently, I have been wrestling with the question of, “does God really love me?” I mean, I know in my head that He does. I can recite verse after verse that tells me that is true. But do I believe it? Do I believe it from the depths of my soul?
What I realized as I was sitting with this question is that I believe it to a point. And then my mind races with thoughts that cause me to wonder if God is disappointed with me. And is He frustrated that I am not farther along in my walk with Him? I accepted Christ when I was eight. After all these years, and His faithfulness, is His patience with me about out?
These thoughts and doubts that have crept into my mind have translated into behaviors like striving, performing and perfectionism. And a drive to try and earn God’s love and favor. I have thought, “All the hard work I am putting in will make up for the lack of progress I have made to ‘be better’.”
I do not know if you can relate to these doubts and thought patterns. But what I can tell you is that these thought patterns have not led me closer to God. They have driven me further away because trying to earn God’s love is a fruitless and ineffectual task that leads to aimless wandering.
As I wrestled with these questions and the reality of my heart, the Holy Spirit brought my grandparents’ water well to mind. The Spirit reminded me of the cool, and revivifying nature of the water. I would run into the kitchen on fumes, all hot and sweaty, and guzzle a glass of water. I could feel the water running down my throat into my tummy. I remember that cooling sensation. Summer days were made of days like these.
But the quenching of my thirst only lasted a few minutes. The second I ran back outside and got to chase my brother around the yard, the thirst would come back quick as ever.
It is a fact that water is essential to life. We will not survive long without it. Pure water gives us minerals and resources to our bodies with elements that are pertinent to our thriving. Drinking contaminated water, however, can lead to severe sickness and even death. We were designed to thirst. Physically and spiritually. Our physical thirst is an outward expression of the inward spiritual thirst to be in relationship with God.
Often, we do try to quench the thirst with people, accomplishments, stuff, and activities rather than God. And thus, we stay dry, with a constant craving for more, believing with more comes a quelling of our thirst.
The Bible is clear that we are made to thirst, as expressed here in Psalm 63:1, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.” Our thirst is for God. Even before we know Him, we yearn for Him.
Throughout the Bible we encounter verses about Christ as the LIVING water. John 4:13-14 says, “Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
We get that water quenches out thirsting body, but have you yet considered the thirsting of your souls? Our souls long for water that will quench us of our thirst finally. It has become apparent to me that that this quenching is not possible while I am still drinking water from the well that runs dry.
Our water wells can be full of contaminated water. The water we drink from can be loaded with striving, with perfection, the desire for position, squandering time, treasure, and talent resources for personal gain, and of course the desire for control and power. The contaminated water we drink tastes so normal to us that we do not even know that it is causing us harm and leading us to destruction.
Our thirst can become so strong that we are willing to go to extremes to fill it. Oh, that God will protect us from seeking to satisfy our thirsting souls for something or someone other than Him. Have you ever thought about the extent people used to go to order to obtain water from a well?
They would often have to walk for miles to the well, carrying jugs to fill. Then lowering bucket by bucket to reach the water source. Then hauling the buckets back up. Pouring the water into their jugs. After the jugs are filled, the work of getting the water back home, without spilling. Carrying heavy jugs for a day’s worth of water, only to do the same trek the very next day.
Can you imagine what it must have felt like when they arrived at the well only to discover the well was dry?
Do you know we have access to a well that NEVER RUNS DRY?
What I know is that when we get a sip of the living water, there is no comparison. Because with the living water we find freedom. When we drink in the living water of Christ Jesus, we are filled up with Him. When Jesus fills us up the pursuits that were once essential to us are now insignificant and inconsequential. But I also know that trusting a new water source, even when what we are drinking is harming us, takes a great deal of courage.
What if we had the courage to leave the contaminated water behind? What if we could get to a place in our lives where we do not strive to be accepted? What if we could accept God’s love instead of trying to earn it? What if we stop pursuing perfection and start pursuing the perfect one? What if we admit the contaminated waters of this world have left us high and dry?
My invitation to you today is that you would consider leaving behind the well and the water that has left you empty and parched. Would you consider taking a sip of the living water of Jesus Christ. The truth is that your soul pants, and thirsts for God alone.
Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?”
“When shall I come and appear before God?” If you are asking this question, the answer is now. There is no time like the present. God is ready and waiting with arms wide open to envelop you in His arms. He is ready and waiting to satisfy the desires of your heart with living water that will never run dry.
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