Thursday, January 23, 2020  

Today’s Scripture Reading  |  John 4:1–15
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee.

But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” (NRSV)

Reflection
I think this passage, and more specifically the part that says “whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst,” is trying to tell us that if we seek God (the “living water”) we will not feel the need to seek for anything else. 

It is a good passage to keep in mind while I search for the perfect gift or create the picture-perfect card. While these desires may fulfill a temporary need, they will not sustain me or create the most meaningful life. Only searching for the Holy Spirit will truly fulfill us and keep us from feeling the need to thirst for anything else.

Prayer
Dear God, Holy Spirit, Living Water, please help me to quiet my short-term desires and strengthen my focus on a meaningful life through you. Amen.

Written by Ann Grissom, Member of Fourth Presbyterian Church

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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