Enough to End All Thirst
Ruth Ann Stites, Staff Writer
On a hot summer day, it’s important to stay well hydrated. A few years ago, on a family trip, we visited Disney Land in California. It was a hot day, and I fell victim to a mild case of heat exhaustion. I spent a while cooling down and rehydrating on the shady deck of the Mark Twain Riverboat. The lesson I took away from that experience was how imperative heat and thirst can be…in fact heat and lack of water can kill us.[1]
The need for water is also a spiritual principle. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, she was suffering from spiritual heat stroke (John 4:1-42). She thought she needed the water from Jacob’s well, but her real need was for the living water Jesus offered her:
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
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.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (John 4:9-15).
Using thirst as a metaphor for spiritual need paints a vivid picture of how much we need what Jesus offers. In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt. 5:6). This promise echoes what He said to the Samaritan woman when He told her that His water would satisfy her eternally.
Pastor McCarty often refers to the principle of enough in his writings. That means that our Heavenly Father provides what we need, when we need it…just enough, never too much or too little. The Samaritan woman found enough to share with her community, “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? … Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, He told me everything I ever did’” (John 4:28-29, 39).
As we pray, we can come as a thirsty person does to drinkable water knowing that we will receive enough—all we need—of the water of eternal life. Our deepest longings and needs are met, and we know an intimacy and security nothing else can bring. We have the Lord Jesus’s assurance from Matthew 5:6, “for they [those who seek] will be filled.”
Reflection Questions:
- Do you recall a time when you have been very thirsty? What did it feel like to have your thirst satisfied?
- Can you relate to being spiritually thirsty? Where do you find spiritual refreshment for that dryness of spirit?
Take a moment to contemplate what it means to be “filled” as Matthew 5:6 describes. Do you relate that fullness with intimacy with God? Why or why not?
(Photo description and credit: I took this picture on a visit to Missouri’s Big Spring Park, part of the National Parks Services Ozark National Scenic Riverways. This spring’s average daily flow is calculated at as much as 289 million gallons of water. It is one of the largest springs in the country and gives us a sense of what Jesus meant by “a spring of living water.” Photo by R.A. Stites)
[1] Here is a link to an article explaining the dangers of overheating and dehydration on our bodies if you would like to learn more about it: Don’t fry: 3 stages of heat stroke you need to know
