WEDNESDAY

SCRIPTURE: John 4:7-15

Finding water, especially if you are in a place where it does not seem very abundant and may take effort to obtain, is a serious business. The people in Sychar were not able to just turn on the tap and let it flow; they had to travel to the well, draw out what they needed, and carry it back home. It is in the midst of doing just this that Jesus, thirsty himself, encounters a lone Samaritan woman in the middle of the day, drawing water. He asks her for a drink. Jesus is physically thirsty, but so is the woman—in ways that she is not fully aware of, as the conversation that ensues reveals. While a request for water is not something that, in that time and place, would be ignored, the conversation was unusual in a number of ways. Jews avoided associating with Samaritans, and it was not the time of day when someone would typically be coming to the well to draw water. The woman’s questions revolve around the well that she was drawing from and the heritage it represented. Jesus’ responses invite her to consider another source, and a kind of thirst that is satisfied in a more profound way. The woman toils to come and draw water, only to thirst again. Jesus offers access to a source of water that springs up from within and keeps our thirst quenched. The contrasting imagery speaks powerfully in the story, as God once again is seen as the one who provides for us, even in the midst of otherwise dry places. As you reflect on the story, consider the following questions:

• Have you ever been in a situation in which you felt like someone unexpectedly included you and affirmed you? What was it like for you when that happened?

• Have you ever been in a situation in which you were offering someone something they seemed to need, but it turned out that what they offered you in return was much greater? What was that like for you?

• To what extent does your walk with God feel more like trudging to the well to gather up what you can, only to have to return again later when you run out, as opposed to a spring welling up inside of you in response to God’s graciousness and love?

• Notice what John records Jesus saying just a few chapters later in John 6:35. How does what he says there resonate with what he was sharing with the woman at the well?

• In what ways have you, or do you, experience that thirst-quenching sense of God’s love and grace springing up from within you?

As you continue to ponder this story and reflect on your own walk with God today, take a few moments to share with God in prayer what surfaces for you in this passage.