Filled with the Living Water
This last 2 months my team and I have been reading through the book of John and studying his perspective on Jesus’s life. Something he references a lot throughout his writing is Jesus’ teaching on the water of life. This is something that really struck a cord with me and developed a really important question in me; What water is filling my life? The first story we see John write about the water of life is in John 4 with the Samaritan woman.
“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.'”
John 4: 13
I love this verse because Jesus is sharing with the Samaritan woman the way to Him and eternal life which is through Him. When we were reading through this chapter I was really just struck with this overbearing question of What am I filling my life with? Earthly water or living water?
I also found myself thinking about how the water the lord gives us will be a spring of water within us that will well up. This pricked a thought of what was welling up out of me and if that correlated with what I was filling myself with.
To give a little backstory of why this struck me so much, I had been really struggling with frustration and anger at the time. It wasn’t what I wanted to be feeling, but it was what I kept falling into. When we read this I began to reflect on why I was feeling these really negative emotions. I realized that I hadn’t been spending time with the Lord, rather I had been spending time on social media, Netflix, and books.
I decided to delete Netflix and take a break from social media, limiting myself on the time I could spend there. I also, decided to discipline myself to spend time with the Lord everyday, filling myself with His word and listening for His voice. As the days passed, I began to find my anger and frustration fading, and it began to be replaced by peace.
I walk now in understanding that what I feed myself is what I share with the world. The more I feed myself on earthly comforts, the more I share earthly reactions to things. However, the more I fill myself with Godly words and affirmation, the more I share peace and patience in worldly situations. What we fill ourselves with directly effects what we share back into the world. That is what I believe Jesus was sharing with the Samaritan woman in this story.
I hope this made some sense and I definitely still have to fight the battle of frustration, but I truly understand the importance of filling myself every day with God’s truth and His guidance.
If you struggle with doing what you don’t want to do like me, I would love to encourage you to start disciplining yourself to spend time in God’s word, talk to Him, and listen to Him everyday. Do it for a week or two and see what happens. I believe He will begin to shape you and you will find yourself walking in freedom of the things you don’t want to do or be in your life.
Love y’all.
P.S. This is just my perspective of the story and what it spoke to me, but I definitely think you should go check it out and see if God speaks to you a different through this story!
