John 4:7-15

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.[a])

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.”

15 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.”

Contemplation:

The fact this woman came to the well at noon likely indicates that she was an outcast.  Usually women would go to the well in the cool of morning or evening when they could not only draw water but socialize in the process.  She does not yet realize that Jesus can free her from this daily walk of shame.

Coming to Jesus means giving up our own agenda and exchanging it for God's.  It's a process that begins with belief and leads to surrender.  The woman tells Jesus that "the well is deep" and he has nothing to draw with.  How often we find ourselves, like this woman, speaking of limitations to an all powerful God.  We effectively, by our attitude of unbelief, profess that the "deep" places in our lives are outside of God's reach.  Jesus not only finds the depth of the well within his reach, but he tells the woman that she is drinking from the wrong water source altogether.  He himself would be the spring to satisfy her thirsty spirit.

Question:

What are the deep places in your life that you consider to be beyond God's reach?

Prayer:

Lord, help us to drink deeply of the living water you offer us.  Give us an appetite for the eternal. May we become increasingly unwilling to settle for water that only momentarily quenches our thirst.  May we allow your presence to transform the deepest an most inaccessible parts of our lives.