Thirsty Wells

Where do you quench your thirst?
Seriously, stop and consider it.
Where do you take your thirsty heart?

Relationships? Careers? Children? Even ministry?

There's a story in the Bible of Jesus meeting a woman at a well.

Here's the thing.

It's not just any woman. It's not just any well.
And so, it's actually much more than a story of Jesus meeting a woman at a well.

You see, Jesus took a shortcut on his journey, a path that devout Jews would have vehemently avoided, because Samaritans laid in its wake. Samaritans were deemed the socially impure.
The unworthy.
The shameful.
And yet, Jesus took the path others refused to tread.
And it is on that path that the woman at the well comes into the story.

She's a picture of dejection, isolation, abandonment. Her seemingly insurmountable shame and turmoil weighed heavy on her heart that afternoon.

Afternoon. No one else would have been at that well; the women collected water in the morning and night to avoid the heat. But, like I said, her shame weighed heavy, and so she tread in isolation with a burdened soul to that well.

A Samaritan woman who had had five different husbands- she was broken.
And thirsty.

And it is at the well that Jesus meets her.

How many times up until that moment she must have thought, now God. Now. Now is when You need you to step in.
And when she thought she had hit the bottom, the ground beneath her fell open again, swallowing her in shame & disgust & remorse & regret.

And yet,
impeccable timing.

Jesus didn't miss a thing.
Don't overlook that- not a thing did He miss.

He knew of her husbands. He knew of her pain. And He came.

He came exactly when she needed Him to.

It was no accident that He crossed paths with her at that well. He deliberately, passionately, persistently, and devoutly sought out her broken heart just when she was about to plunge again into that well of despair, grasping for that which would never satisfy her & in turn promised that He had that which would truly deliver her, quenching her thirst.

Here is what I am saying to you today.

We are that woman at the well.
The one whose ground has fallen out, then has given out again.
The one who still goes to that dried up, thirsty well.

You see, we're all thirsty; parched & dried & desperately thirsty.

So, we lower our pails of hopes & desires & needs into a well of promise--whether that oath come from the lips of a lover or the digits in a bank account, we delve into it.
But.
What of when our source of life and hope and purpose has dried? When our bucket comes up empty and our hearts are dried and our soul is just heavy with the weight of the breaking of disillusionment?
When compromising your body for that boy did not leave you fulfilled.
When that relationship did not satisfy your heart.
When that bank account did not provide you soul security.

Now I don't know what has you at the well today. I don't know what you're casting your bucket down into- plunging into new depths, reaching & longing & grabbing & hoping & crying & praying & dreaming & hurting & needing something new to surface, to quench your thirst. Maybe today your worst fears were realized, as the ground you have already fallen down onto came out beneath you again as you encountered something new that was painful & cutting & jarring & scary & frightening & everything ugly.

No, I don't know what has you at the well.

But here is what I do know.

Just as you may be on newly fallen ground, trust that He is coming and His timing is perfect.
He will tread the ground that others will not to get to you.

And in turn, He gives that which will truly quench.

Yes. It is at that precise, exact, impeccably timed moment when we meet Jesus at the well in which we are quenched. It is that place where our insatiable thirst is met and encountered by the unrestrained, unimaginable, and undeniable love of Christ; it is truly a coming home of sorts.

You see, it all comes down to this.
Jesus drank that cup of wrath & punishment on that Cross so we would never again need to swallow the dehydrating gulps of shame.
Pain.
Brokenness.

Let's love more deeply, trust more tangibly, and live more radically in the light of the Well Himself.

& so our thirst is quenched.

Love,
one woman at the well to another.