Yesterday I read John 4 and the account of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman. I stay for a minute with these words about the water she seeks from the well: “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’.”
I think of it like this: You can do this or that, and it will satisfy you perhaps for a minute, but then you’ll need more of this or that. You’ll be thirsty for life and peace all over again. It won’t work: the new relationship, new house, new clothes, new location. We drop our jugs deep into the well of affluence or prestige. We hover around the well of fame or adventure. We pull up the offering, and for that moment, it’s wonderful. We think we’ve found meaning and real life, but then, suddenly, the illusion cracks and we’re empty again.
I love how Jesus invites a different way to satisfy spiritual thirst. Once you have Jesus, you have real life inside of you. You won’t thirst again.