Why Water Speaks to Us (Sunday Thoughts Link Up #22)
JOHN 4:7-13
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 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.)
10 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.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 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?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”
We’ve been at the beach this week–something this mother’s heart needed for Mother’s Day. I needed palm trees and sand and waves you can hear from the balcony and fresh seafood–the whole beach package. Despite the fact that we have three kids five and under, this trip has been an actaul “vacation”…at least more than most we’ve taken in the last five years. Maybe it’s that the twins are almost three and independent in the good ways (here, carry your own bucket and towel). Maybe it’s that Charlie is bigger, more mobile in his beach wheelchair and more vocal with both his voice and talking device. Either way, I sneaked in some moments of peace, out there rolling Charlie by the ocean, that I haven’t known in a while.
There’s something about water. Water soothes. It’s why we have fish tanks in dentist’s offices (to counteract the terror). It’s why people erect fountains in their gardens and linger longer at the Trevi Fountain in Italy. We are drawn to it. We hang pictures of oceans and lakes and waterfalls. We stand at the tidal edge and let the waves wash over and under our feet, moving the sand and us out to sea. It is deep and mysterious. Men have lost their lives to it. Peter feared Jesus as he traversed it. It casts a spell. It is also cleansing. We baptize with it. Jesus and the disciples washed each other’s feet with it. It is also vital. Moses searched and begged for it in the desert for forty years. Hagar and her son almost died for lack of it when Abraham sent them running. We are 60% water. It is our composition. Perhaps that is why we are drawn to it.
Whatever the reason, I’ve found it to be true, that water speaks to us with whispers and crashes. Which is why, when Jesus meets the woman at the well, his best offer and analogy is to be the well than never runs dry, to be the water that will make you never thirst again. She does not understand at first, does not get the metaphor. But we do. We long to be soothed and saturated with the peace of Jesus. It’s in our genetic makeup.
Sunday Thoughts Link Up!
It’s time for another Sunday Thoughts Link-Up! I know there are many out there with wisdom that could encourage all of us. As long as it’s Biblically-based, I’d love for you to join up and then read and comment on what others have shared. Please also leave a comment here. Think of this as a Sunday morning community group that comes to you. And grab the button if you like…
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