Water in the Desert

by Brandon Barrett

On a hot, dusty day while traveling through Samaria, Jesus and his disciples came to a well. Jesus sent them into town to get food and sat down on a nearby rock to wait. Soon he saw a woman coming down the road. She was alone, a thirsty, outcast prostitute coming to draw water. When she arrived, Jesus greeted her with a request. "Will you give me a drink?" Surprised that a Jewish man would speak to her, a Samaritan woman, she evaded his question. Jesus then pushed through her fear and offered her a gift - a gift she didn't even know to ask for. He said, "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 give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14).

If we as Christians have been given this thirst-quenching gift of living water, then why do we go through periods of spiritual dryness? You know, those awful times when our walk with God seems to stagnate and we end up feeling lost or even abandoned by God? We long for those times, even difficult ones, when God feels close and we know his presence. But why the other extreme? Has God left, or have we?

What was Jesus promising when he offered this living water to the woman at the well? Later, during the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, Jesus shouted to the crowd the same offer he gave the Samaritan woman: "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes come to me and drink. As the Scripture has said, 'out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" John goes on to explain that this living water is the Spirit (John 7:37-39). And the promise is true regardless of our feelings - or even lack of feelings - about it. If you are a believer, a true follower of Jesus, then you have this living water. He doesn't say that if we believe in him we will now have the opportunity to earn this living water. He doesn't say that if we believe we will have a sip of water. When we become Christians, we are given this free, unending, gushing well - the Spirit.

Because of this promise, our times of spiritual dryness do not come from having lost the Spirit or the free gift of eternal life. Far from it! We are under the care of a loving Father who has promised never to let us slip through his fingers (John 10:29). Feeling dry is not the same thing as being dry. When we say that we are spiritually dry, what we are really expressing is our experience of the moment, not a change in our true position before God.

Why Dry?

Though we cannot lose this living water, we can ignore it and God. When we do, we feel thirsty. In many cases, our dryness is simply the result of our own sin. We ignore Paul's encouragement to "keep in step with the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25, NIV), and we begin to follow something else, wandering away from the spring of water. But there are also times we feel far from God for no apparent reason. Those are times we seek earnestly after God and still go through times of drought (more about this later).

The problem of wandering is a tough one because we often don't really want to face our sin. We rebel against the fundamental truth that we exist, by God's pleasure, to serve him above all else. It's not the other way around: he does not exist to serve us. Of course we would never actually say that, but we often act like it. We treat prayer as a personal wish list, we get angry with God when life is difficult, and we forget about God when life is running smoothly. Remember Jesus' strong words: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24).

Jesus isn't out to make our lives miserable. In fact, he desires to give us true, full life (John 10:10). But we tend to look for fulfillment in things that cannot meet our deepest needs. We find true life only by giving up on ourselves. We are creatures made to walk with the Creator. Life in any other context is life in the desert because it's contrary to our design.

So What Can We Do?

Remember the spring of living water? Go there to quench your thirst. What follows is not intended to sound like a formula; rather, these are God-given handholds that can steady us in our walk back to the spring.

Pray. You feel dry and distant from God? Talk to him about it. In prayer we keep in step with the Spirit and drink of the water we have been given. But do not pray lies. Begin where you are, in true honesty before God. If you are bitter towards God, don't pretend that you are not. You're certainly not fooling him, and you risk making yourself more miserable and entrenched in your bitterness. Speak the truth to him. If you feel cold, angry, cheated or confused, that is where you must begin. You may find that these early times of prayer call for confession and repentance, but don't let that stop you. (If you have nothing to say to God, begin by telling him just that!)

David was called a man after God's own heart, and he shows us the way in praying honestly before God. In one time of anguish he prayed, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but find no rest" (Psalm 22:1-2). His prayers were fearless because he knew that God loved him.

Study Scripture. Studying the Bible is not an end in itself but rather a means to our real ends: to know God and his ways, to worship and glorify him. And we are comforted by his Word. It's only in Scripture that we find out who God is. Here we come to know his character, his will and his love for us. Immerse yourself deeply in his revelation to us. For starters, pick one book of the Bible, maybe one of the Gospels or letters of the New Testament, and dig in. Take it slowly, think through what is said, and ask the Lord to make his Word clear to you and help you apply it to your life. A journal can be a helpful tool here. Write down the verses that stick out to you, examining and digesting them through your pen and paper, and see what the Lord will teach you. And what he teaches you, believe. We are dry not because we don't know the truth, but because we don't believe it.

Be in community with other Christians. Get real with them. Allow them to hear your struggles, encourage you, and point you to truth. Do the same for them. Living in community forces us outside of ourselves, into the lives of other people. Often this is what we need most, to use our gifts in service to others.

Reach out. Be involved in the lives of non-Christians and take the gospel to them in word and deed. This is often one of the quickest ways God leads us out of the desert. Participating in his work in the world, our campus, and our dorm pulls us out of our self-absorption and reminds us whose servants we are. You'll need to take a step of faith here because you're feeling weak and thirsty. Who are one or two non-Christians that God has put in your life? Do you long to see them come to know the Lord? If not, pray that you will. And pray that God will move in his mighty power to save these people. This year. And ask him to include you as part of the work. Why pray small prayers? Why expect little from God? He took your sin and brought you to faith. Surely your friends are not beyond his reach!

Still Thirsty?

Our times of drought are not always caused by our sin. Sometimes we're just suffering the consequences of living in a fallen world. We all experience loss, disappointment and the pain of others.

You may feel that you are following God with all you have, and yet you still feel dry and lifeless. If this is you, hang on. Our God will show his face to you again, and your faith will be stronger for it. Don't give up. Know that his love for you is real. God does not waste our suffering. As you wait, cling to his promises. The promise that "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28) is not a poor platitude given by a confused Paul to comfort disillusioned Christians. These words are truth.

The thirsty Samaritan woman listened to Jesus. Without ever drawing from the well, she ran back into town to tell everyone that she had found the Messiah. She left her water jar behind, forgetting the reason she had come to the well, because she had tasted the water she needed most.

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Water in the Desert

God's Word

Urbana Stories

36 days until

December 27-31, 2009