Drink from the Well

Sometimes life leaves you weary. Finances are tough. Family dynamics are difficult. Purpose is hard to find. The clock is ticking down on maternity leave and there are no sure answers as to how to make the next stage of work...work. Sleep is hard to come by. Another relative passes away and, even if its a blessed reprieve from sickness and dementia, its still sad and final. You just don't feel...enough. 

And then you read this: 

A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)

 The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

 The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

John 4:7-15 (the message)

"Gushing fountains of endless life."

"Will never thirst again - not ever."

And your soul reads these words and sighs, yes, please.  Every longing for peace, for answers, for satisfaction, finds rest in these words. Jesus is enough. Yes, He is. But what does that look like? How does this artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life, practically impact these hard, dry spots of life? 

I don't have a lot of answers. I know what it does NOT mean. I know we're not called to be a doormat to the circumstances of life, broken, battered and weak. I don't believe that we're called to a blind peace, ignorant of the difficulties of life.  Isn't that what the holiday season just passed reminded us of? Jesus in the mess? Jesus, as a baby, flesh and blood and helplessness, born in a messy, dirty manger, raised in a normal family, not as a king, and sacrificed himself on a wooden cross as a criminal. He acknowledged the mess. He lived it. He dove headlong right into it and found humanity at its worst. He came near to us so we could come near to Him. 

I know that to be truth. Capital 'T' Truth. 

But I don't have answers today. All I have today is hope that comes from knowing that Jesus cares about the messy bits. He hasn't forgotten. He has answers. He is enough.