Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Hope is a powerful thing. It can be expanded or at times seem to be taken away. There are times in my life when hope seemed all but lost: when my Mom died, when a business failed, or when I have acted in sin and hurt those around me. There are other times when hope was restored and resurrected in my life; when I was given new life in situations by God or others. These times were transformative to how I operated going forward. I no longer needed the same coping mechanisms to deal with the stress, loneliness, or challenges in life. Instead, I had NEW HOPE! Some examples of these times of new hope are: 1) Seeing God provide me with a wife from afar, when I was clueless on how to date women and 2) Seeing him provide a job for my wife at a 30% increase in pay from the job she left 4 years prior, when my business had failed.
What fascinates me about this story of the Samaritan woman is the hope for something greater that Jesus presents. Jesus was physically thirsty, but this woman was thirsty in life. They found some common ground. The thrills of the sinful life had not satisfied her (they never do). So Jesus is telling her that she can drink water that will not only quench her thirst, but internally fill her up with hope! Hope for eternal life. And he would then show her the way to this eternal life. He radiated the Hope in his heart to her.
How am I going to share hope today with others … the hope for eternal life? Am I full of the hope of God myself? Do I speak as one who has a great hope in life? Do I act that way?
Lord, help me to speak and act from a place of peace and assurance in my hope in Jesus Christ. May I RADIATE this HOPE into the lives of others today!
