The living water still satisfies a thirsty soul

I find it absolutely astonishing how fast time goes. We are a week into the new year.

It is extremely cold outside, and we walk into 2021 with the same challenges we had in 2020. However, there is something about the new year that brings a renewed hope.

Time seems to psychologically reset. We become excited about the new year and look forward to somehow creating in 2021 a better version of ourselves.

We may declare that this is the year that we get in shape. This may be the year we decide to change our eating habits or quit smoking.

Maybe you have decided that this is the year you spend less time in front of the television and more time reading books.

Whatever the changes you plan to make let me encourage you, you can accomplish your goals.

Maybe your goal is something different. Maybe you seek a need to be socially accepted.

I would say the biggest lesson the year 2020 has taught us is that we long to be together, and we thrive through emotional acceptance.

In the book of Genesis, after God has created all things, God now has fellowship with man. Yet, he says it is not good for man to be alone.

God knew from the beginning that we needed each other. Our greatest emotional need is intimacy. That need for intimacy and our need for emotional acceptance create a battle inside of us. A war rages within us between acceptance and rejection.

If I was going to pick a Bible character to illustrate what I am trying to communicate, it would be a woman by the name of Photini.

In biblical times, names were not just given to children. Names meant something. The name becomes the personality of that child. A meaning of a name can also speak prophetically into their future, their calling and destiny.

The name Photini means “light” or “luminous one.” You may be thinking in your mind, “Who is Photini?”

Her name does not appear in scripture, but historical eastern orthodox documents give us her name. We know of her as the Samaritan woman at the well that Jesus talks with in John chapter 4.

When Jesus meets her at the well, she is a broken woman. She is not very luminous. Photini is in search of intimacy, hope and redemption. She is longing for acceptance. However, at the same time, rejection has become a wall that she seems trapped behind.

Photini longs for acceptance, and she longs to worship the Lord. Here she is, down at the well to draw water.

Just a regular routine for her. She just wants to retrieve the water and then go back to her village.

That is, until a Jewish man asks her, a Samaritan Woman for a drink.

She responds back, “You Jews don’t want to associate with us Samaritans yet here you are asking me for a drink?”

She is tired, a little cranky and appalled.

Jesus responds, “If you only knew the gift from God and who is asking you for a drink you would ask him for living water and you would never thirst again. A spring of living water will flow from within you welling up to eternal life.”

At this point, Photini thinks they are still talking about water. She is excited at the possibility of never having to come to the well again to draw water.

In reality, she has the same feeling we experience in a new year. We have an anticipation that this year, life is going to be different. In similar fashion, life cannot change until we confront the pain and the brokenness inside of us.

I had one of those experiences yesterday. I have been working extremely hard to have a balanced and regular routine in my life. I was getting many things accomplished yesterday. I was moving through my “to do” list like a boss!

Until it came time for the next task, renew tags at the licence branch. First, it was an hour and a half on the phone calling to see who was open. No one answered the phone at any branch. It was an hour making sure I had all the right paperwork. No one wants to drive an hour away and get to the branch only to find out they can’t issue the tags because you do not have the proper paperwork.

What should be easy can sometimes be a daunting task. Let’s not even talk about the hassle of finding a garage that will do the vehicle inspection.

I get to the license branch. I take my number. They are on number 61, the guy who has number 65 has been waiting for 90 minutes. They close in 90 minutes, and I am number 83.

It is at that time that I realize that what I saw as aggravation was only a play out of God’s playbook for me to trust him. Maybe to develop some more much needed patience in my life and to think about God’s sovereignty. The Lord sees the much bigger picture for my life. He sees the picture I cannot see. We tend to over exaggerate the little things until the point that they are no longer little.

Photini quickly realizes that Jesus is talking about something greater than the water that is coming up from Jacob’s well.

She states with anticipation, “ Sir, give me this water so I will not become thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

This is where the plot of the story takes a very unusual twist.

Jesus responds, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” (Can you say, “awkward?”)

Photini responds, “I have no husband.”

Jesus says, “You are right in saying you have no husband. You have had five husbands and the man you have now he is not your husband.”

I believe Jesus speaks into her brokenness here. He isn’t shaming her, he is making preparations to remove the shame.

Photini turns this into a religious conversation about worship and what the Samaritans believe and what the Jews believe.

Jesus cuts to the chase in John 4:23, “The hour is coming and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth. For the father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Her response is one full of hope that comes from deep inside of her brokenness.

“I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When he comes he will tell us all things.”

It took one line, one sentence, one phrase to set her free.

“I who speak to you am he.”

This one phrase causes her whole life to be transformed. This one phrase fulfilled the longing in her soul. This one phrase caused her to leave her water jar at the well of Jacob as she ran back to the village shouting, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.”

Actually, Jesus just told her she had five husbands and the sixth one is not a husband.

However, Jesus spoke into her brokenness and her acceptance and hope was now found in Christ.

Photini, at that moment becomes, who she was called to be from birth. She became the “luminous one.” She became “light” in her dark village.

She brought the Samaritan people a message of hope and in doing so, many were also set free.

How do we know this? John 4:42, they said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world.”

There you have it!

Photini became who she was called to be, the “luminous one” became light and gave light to others. She went from rejected and broken to accepted and restored.

John 4:14 is still true for every one of us. The living water still satisfies a thirsty soul.

Those who drink the water that Jesus gives them will never thirst. I wish you the best as you strive to be the best “you” you can be in 2021. May God bless you and you family richly.

Dave Truncone is the pastor of First Assembly of God Church in Van Buren.