I am a water drinker, and while we all should be, I know not everyone enjoys water. I grew up on soda and kool-aid, and used to drink soda all day and night. I honestly cringe at remembering that now. When I was pregnant with my first child, my OBGYN stressed how important it was I cut soda out. 20 years later, and I am water obsessed. I take it everywhere I go, and I feel it when I haven’t had enough.

If you are a water drinker, you know that feeling when you’re parched and while there may be a slew of options, none of them satisfy your thirst quite like water.

I believe most things in the physical have a spiritual parallel and application.

We have a physical body that hungers and thirsts, and a soul that desires and craves. We also have a spirit man that hungers and thirsts. So often we try to feed our spirit man the same things our flesh and soul crave. Things like sex, food, alcohol, money and success, and a thousand other things that fuel addictions and give us that temporary satisfaction and relief.

I believe that what we satisfy our desires with deeply impacts our spirit. Much like a body and soul can wither away and die from neglect, malnourishment or dehydration, so can our spirit.

I know soul thirst well, and I know drawing from the dirtiest wells trying to quench my thirst.

Growing up I was really poor, and when I got to high school my parents just couldn’t afford the name brand clothing most of my peers had. I had four shirts to get me through the week and I washed the one I wore on Monday, usually in Palmolive dish soap because we didn’t have detergent, and wore it again on Friday. Yes, I was that poor. Now I’m sure you can imagine how important it is at that age, what you’re wearing and how fitting in is impossible if you don’t have the latest and greatest.

To make matters worse, I was rail thin with big frizzy hair, and crazy teeth. Thankfully, I got braces because I had a whole compass in my mouth. NSEW, your girl here had teeth that could point you in any direction. Yikes. I know.

I was teased mercilessly. I was the poor, awkward, and ugly kid. I found myself skirting the edges of most groups, never really feeling like I fit, and I craved acceptance and validation from my peers. When validation and attention finally came my way, I didn’t consider the source or count the cost. I just lapped it up, like it was an oasis in my desert.

My soul was thirsty, and I tried to quench that thirst in ways that didn’t truly satisfy, and ultimately led to a bigger and more isolating problem: shame. As I spiraled deeper into that shame, I still had this profound desire to find my place, and to feel satisfied there. For a long time I struggled to figure out who or what would satisfy this thirsting in my soul. Friends, I tried to find it in people, places and things, and none of them ever left me feeling full or fulfilled. More often than not, I felt more empty than I had before.

I know I am not the only one who has ever struggled with this seemingly unquenchable thirst. We all do to some degree or another. The $12 billlion dollar porn industry, the $39 billion dollar self storage indusrty, and a $240 billion alcohol industry are just a few of the blaringly obvious examples of the places we go to satisfy our thirst.

While some of the places we go are super obvious, often there are more subtle ways we quench our thirsts. Are you someone who constantly surrounds yourself with people, or flit from one relationship to the next because you desperately don’t want to be alone? Or do you post selfie after selfie, and live off of the validation and affirmation of strangers? Maybe you find yourself devouring half a dozen donuts after an emotionally charged or stress filled day? Thats me by the way. The sugar addict.

Some strive to earn their place by earning all of the degrees, or climbing a corporate ladder. Others by checking religious boxes because they just don’t feel worthy without trying to earn their way.

I think if we’re all honest, we would admit that we all have a well we run to, and that ultimately, those things never truly satisfy us. We might feel a momentary satisfaction, but then we’re right back to chasing that satisfaction again and again.

If sex, money, food, and all of our addictions just leave us dry and parched, who or what is it that can satisfy our thirst?

In John chapter 4, we see Jesus at Jacob’s well. It is here He encounters a Samaritan woman. Jesus stopped at the well in the sixth hour, which would have been about noon. In those days, women went to the well in the early morning and evening, and they went together.

Here the woman was at noon, the hottest part of the day. She was all alone, likely avoiding the sneers and jeers of those who rejected her because of her sin. She was physically thirsty, but Jesus uses the opportunity to address her soul thirst and offer her something more.

There is so much going on in this passage. A Jew speaking to a Samaritan. A man speaking with a woman. Jesus’ first admission to being the Messiah, demonstrating that He came for all people. It is such a rich and amazing passage! You should go check it out later.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. Jesus is a Jew speaking to a Samaritan, and a Samartitan woman no less. A woman who was on the outskirts of polite society because of her sin, which was an outward manifestation of an inward soul thirst. It is here Jesus provides the antidote for the Samaritan woman, and for us. He is the source. He is the living water that would finally, and fully satisfy her deepest soul thirst. Not only would her thirst be satisfied, but it would well up eternal life within her.

“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.” John 4:13 AMPC

Wow! Has your dirty well ever welled up eternal life within you? Mine hasn’t. No, it welled up shame and isolation, and in some instances, poor physical health.

So how do you find satisfaction for your thirst?

Go to the source. Jesus is the living water that springs up to everlasting life.

I, like a lot of us, have tried to fill a God sized hole inside with everything but God. Friend, I can tell you honestly that there is truly nothing else that will ever satisfy your soul, or bring life to your spirit. You can try everything the world offers, and still feel empty.

Hold your cup up to Him, and ask Him to fill it. Not just once, but daily. Sit with Him, pour out your heart in prayer. Worship and magnify His name, and take in the daily bread that is His word. The more you draw from that wellspring of life, the more satisfied you will become.

Jesus, in the most counter-cultrual way, met the Samaritan woman at her well and drew her into a conversation. Jesus is drawing you into a conversation, just like He drew her. He is ready to pour out living water to satisfy the thirsting of your soul.

The choice to respond and receive, or not, is yours.

I don’t know about you, but I am desperate for a Jesus who meets me where I am. A Jesus who comes down off of His thrown to the dirty well I’m drawing from, and in His kindness and compassion offers me a drink of living water.

If you are desperate for Him to meet you at your well, lift your cup to Him. You are not too dirty, and never too far gone.

Lift your cup, and be filled with living water. Jesus is a wellspring of eternal and abundant life.

Let me pray for you:

Heavenly Father, I am so thankful for your mercy and grace. Your mercy that comes down humble and small, in human form, and stops by the well to meet with me. You God, who created the Heavens and the earth, the God who loved me before the foundation of the world. Father, I ask that every person reading this prayer would be strengthened in the knowledge of how greatly loved by You they are. Oh ABBA, that they would know You chose them, and have good works in store for each of them. God probe the depths of their hearts, and reveal every place they go to quench their thirst. Give them the desire to empty their cups of the things the world has filled them with, and hold their cup high to You. Fill them to overflow with You, because You are daily bread, and a well that never runs dry. In Jesus’ most precious name, amen.

“Then on the most important day of the feast, the last day, Jesus stood and shouted out to the crowds—“All you thirsty ones, come to me! Come to me and drink! Believe in me so that rivers of living water will burst out from within you, flowing from your innermost being, just like the Scripture says!””
‭‭John‬ ‭7:37-38‬ ‭TPT‬‬

https://open.spotify.com/track/66Gq3JeBdAWtoANXDDzvwJ?si=xoNMNRvVSl6g2WSjYu2h9Q