The Fountain of Living Water: Come and Thirst No More

Have you ever been thirsty? Like really thirsty? I can think of one time that I was.

It was a hot summer day, and I had been weeding for hours while volunteering at a camp. As the afternoon wore on, it got really hot, and a friend I was working with went to get water.

I didn’t even realize how thirsty I was until I drank that first cup of water. Suddenly, I realized how exhausted I was. I can’t remember ever appreciating water that much. I drank and drank and drank… and I was refreshed! It was like I had a new burst of energy, new strength to finish the job.

It made me think of the Psalm where David says, “my soul thirsts for you [God]… as in a dry and weary land where there is no water,” (Psalm 63:1). Maybe I was being a little dramatic, but I could suddenly relate to that feeling of extreme thirst. I experienced the rejuvenation that water can bring.

And I wondered: do I thirst for God like that? Can I say with David, “As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2)?

Thirsty and Broken

Hydration is trending in our culture. Or at least modes of hydration. Gatorade water bottles, Hydro Flasks, and Stanleys have become a staple in the average teen’s life. Look around a high school classroom, and nearly every student will have a water bottle of some shape or form.

I don’t know how the trend started, if it was really about health, or if it just became cool to carry water around. But it’s a practical outflowing of a deeper truth.

We are a thirsty culture.

We feel exhausted and worn-out. We desire satisfaction and rejuvenation. We are searching for that one thing that will heal up the desert places in our souls.

“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13

God is the ultimate source of satisfaction and joy. He is the “fountain of living waters.” He can quench the deepest thirsts of our souls; come into our lives and fill the dry, cracked ground of our hearts with new life.

“For [the Lord] satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things.” Psalm 107:9

But sin draws us away from that Fountain. When we turn away from Him, we will seek to fill that thirst with other things. Broken things that have no power to quench our thirst.

Imagine if, on that hot summer day, my friend brought me a cup of water that had the bottom broken out. No matter how many times I tried to drink, no matter how many times she refilled my cup, it would not help my thirst. I would not have been refreshed, and I wouldn’t have had the energy to finish my task.

A broken cup is useless. In fact, it is potentially damaging. Nobody wants glass shards floating around in their water. Yet we run to “broken cups” to satisfy our thirst every day.

We run to friends to satisfy our loneliness. We run to a significant other to experience love. We run to screens to fill up our boredom and distract from our sadness. We run to activities to prove our worth. We run to popularity for a sense of value.

We try to fill up the cracks in our hearts with all these other things, but we’re trying to drink from broken vessels that cannot hold water. So, we will always find ourselves unsatisfied.

Living Water

So, are we doomed to be eternally thirsty?

No!

Our thirst is not merely a problem to be ignored or medicated. It’s not meant to be fixed-up and forgotten. Thirst gives us an opportunity to see our need and turn to Christ.

I think of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4. She had walked far to reach the well, and Jesus asked her for a drink. She asks why He, a Jewish man, would even speak to her.

Jesus says, “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 misses His point, responding, “Sir, You have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do You get that living water?”

Jesus answers, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman thinks He’s offering a physical drink that will cure thirst and make her life easier. Jesus patiently explains that He is talking about greater things than physical water.

In Jeremiah, God called Himself the “fountain of living waters.” Here, Jesus offers living water to those who believe in Him. This is water that will quench that deep thirst of our souls.

Our desire for satisfaction finds reprieve in Christ. Our longing for love and value is filled in Christ. Our ache for something better is explained and soothed in Christ.

Our soul-deep thirst can be quenched in Christ.

Hear the compassion in His voice as God calls, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1).

God isn’t stingy and stubborn, giving a meager sip to those who beg for it. He wants us to come drink deeply of His love, grace, and mercy. To experience satisfaction in Him, the Fountain of Living Waters.

Satisfied In Christ

When we find our thirsts satisfied in Christ, it changes us from the inside out.

Accepting salvation in Christ allows us to turn back to the fountain of Living Waters and stop running to our broken cisterns.

We are no longer slaves to sin, searching for a scrap of satisfaction in temptation’s empty promises. We are no longer running after compliments, awards, and approval. We are no longer driven by unquenchable thirsts.

In John 7:38, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Verse 39 goes on to clarify that He is referring to the Holy Spirit.

When we turn back to God, we are not only satisfied, our hearts are filled with living waters. The Holy Spirit enters our brokenness with power, grace, and fulfillment. Our spiritual drought is healed, and our soul’s thirst is satisfied.

The world seeks water in broken cisterns, chasing after every drop of fulfillment. But, at the end of the chase, they will only find dry, broken, empty vessels.

We were created for God; to be eternally satisfied in Him. When we turn away and choose sin instead, we abandon that fulfillment, and that is why we thirst.

Let us turn from our broken cisterns and back to the Fountain of Living Waters. Because Christ is enough to satisfy our every need and our every longing.

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, proclaim that His name is exalted.’” Isaiah 12:3-4