Wells of Water

“Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’”

John 4:13, 14

     The Bible tells us that Isaac was the son of a great father who was a digger of wells. Only those who have lived in a desert realize the preciousness of wells of water. Not only is water important to human beings, but to their herds and flocks as well. Water means death or life to those whose home is in the desert. In the Near East there are extensive deserts without natural streams to provide water. David, the psalmist, knew the importance of water to himself and to his flocks when he wrote, "He leads me beside the still waters." Digging wells in the desert land was not easy because the tools used were very crude, the ground dry and stony. Often, the water could only be found at a great depth beneath the surface of the earth, and the shepherd must draw the water with a bucket, and then give each animal to drink.

     In John 4, Jesus, being tired of walking in the heat of the mid-day sun sat by a well that Isaac’s son, Jacob, had dug some 2200 years before. This occurred in Samaria, which was peopled by those who were unfriendly foes of the Jews. While Jesus waited, a woman came with a bucket to the well. Jesus asked her for a drink. She was, however, suspicious of Him for she knew a Jew would not ordinarily ask a Samaritan for a favor. He said, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Here we have a thirsty Shepherd, and an even thirstier sheep, and there were many more in that Samaritan village who came to drink of His water.

     Since that day there have been many thirsty sheep, but, unfortunately, also thirsty under-shepherds who thought that they could improve on that water of life. William Cowper, poet and hymn-writer, wrote:

"Letting down buckets into empty wells
And growing old with drawing nothing up!"

Let us, brethren, be of those who have received that pure water of life and now offer it to others in its purity, to as many as the Lord does call.

C.A. Loucky ©CDMI