A Deep Well

John 4: 7 - 15
7When 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.)
9The 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])
10Jesus 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? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The 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.

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Much like the Samaritan women, I desire to be filled with the living water. A water so satisfying that once you have been filled with it you will no longer thirst for anything else.

I know that I have drank of it, its liquid sweetness has quench my soul so many times. There have been those times of deepest despair over loved ones, or times of loneliness where its depths have kept me afloat. Where that spring inside of me seemed to reproduce itself until I felt full and refreshed.
But here I am in a desert, dry, hot and seemingly unending. I know intellectually that the spring of living water still exists within me, and yet I think it has sunk somewhere in a deep chasm unable to flow up and outward.

A number of years ago we had dug a shallow well for our home. The well was nearly 35 feet deep and we had hit a slow spring. Within no time the well seemed to sustain ten feet of water at all times, even with our family of 5’s constant use of showers, dishes and laundry. But after 6 months of use, the well went dry. No matter how many times we would prime the pump we could barely get enough water to wash the dishes by hand. After a few weeks we realized we had to abandon that well. Its shallow spring had dried up in the awful heat of the summer. Its source not deep enough or plenty enough to be sustained.

We went Five long months between wells. During that time I lugged dishes back and forth to my parents house, we showered there and I did my laundry there, until we could afford to have an Artesian well drilled. We learned a valuable lesson about not drilling the deep well the first time.

I still remember the day we had the Artesian well drilled. I was so excited!!! I couldn’t wait to turn the faucet on or take a shower! The drill went 345 feet into the ground before it found a vein of water and the water it found came up at 60 gallons a minute. A Gold Mine! There was nothing like it in the summer. Coming from those depths it was COLD and refreshing. Never again did we run out of water, and the only time we had to re-prime the pump was when it got hit by lightening. The well drillers came in, replaced the motor and once again fresh cold water came from its depths. The water… it never dried up, it was there. It just needed a new way to get pumped out.

Thank goodness I’m not like the first well, shallow and easily drained completely dry, never to be of any use again. The well of Living Water in me right now has gotten hit by lightening so it seems. My motor burned up, but its refreshing sustaining life giving supply is still there. It’s the gap in time, waiting for the new motor to kick in, so its cool sweetness can once again course through my spirit that has me constantly on my knees pleading with God to let it begin. He lets us go through these dry times so we will know just how deep the well is. That it’s supply never runs out, to maybe remind us that shallow wells (shallow faith, shallow Christianity) can never compare to the deep well of living water he places inside of us.

Come Lord Jesus, replace the motor with a fresh anointing of your Holy Spirit and let the waters flow.
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