Water cravings

“If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
I can only conclude that I was not made for here
If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary,
then of course I'll feel nude when to where I'm destined I'm compared.”

(From the C.S. Lewis song by Brooke Fraser)

On occasion I still take a drink from small rivulets high in the Colorado mountains where I know it's all snowmelt and the chance of contamination is low. It is a taste like no other, and it transports me to childhood. Yet even after slaking your thirst with that wonderful water you still need more a few hour later.

When Jesus talks with the Samaritan woman, he captures her imagination. Water is such a basic essential. And for most of the human race, for most of time, finding, carrying, and using water has involved vast amounts of work.

So when he talks about a constant flow of water, she is intrigued. Engaged enough that he manages to steer her into a conversation that gets to the root of pain in her life. She’s had a difficult time in relationships. Either she’s been divorced or widowed numerous times and she’s living with yet another man.

Perhaps she thought that there was a perfect man out there, or a relationship that might be able to fix the emptiness inside.

Yet somewhere in the talking and sharing she discovers that Jesus believes she is meant to have more in her life.

But his insight into her life makes her uncomfortable so she tries to switch the conversation to religion. (Which seems a safer subject when talking with a preacher!) But again Jesus switches gears. He manages to open her up to the idea that the God of the Universe has made her for an eternal purpose; that only that God will satisfy the craving inside.

God craves an ever deepening relationship with us. When we begin to drink that in, our craving may actually increase. For the first time we are drinking the water from the home country; the land of eternity. In this life we will never get enough. Because we are made for something even more glorious.