The Drink that Didn’t Satisfy

Early in our married life, Cheri and I had a house on a wooded acre lot in Fayetteville, Georgia.  The front yard had a steep slope from the street down to the house, and the back yard had a gradual slope down toward the woods.  The fescue grass was sparse and the ground was hard Georgia clay.  Since the lawn wasn’t well established, there were ruts in the yard from erosion.  Mowing the lawn was a chore that I despised.  At the time, I didn’t have a self-propelled mower.  My legs provided the driving force behind the mower to navigate the hills and the ruts.  Dirt patches were abundant, and the mower created a thick cloud of dust in the heat of the summer.  And then there were the fire ants … why did God make them anyway?

I was mowing the lawn one hot summer day, and took a break to go inside and get a cold drink.  Crystal Light lemonade was my beverage of choice, and Cheri usually kept a pitcher of it in the refrigerator.  I grabbed the pitcher from the fridge and poured the cold beverage over ice.  I took a big gulp of something that wasn’t lemonade!  It was cold, but it was slightly thickened.  I spewed it into the sink and looked at the pitcher.  I hadn’t noticed that it didn’t really look like lemonade.  The taste was bland, kind of like chicken.  That’s exactly what it was.  Cheri had boiled chicken bones to get the marrow to make chicken broth.  I had poured a tall glass of chilled chicken bone marrow on the rocks.  It was a drink that didn’t and couldn’t satisfy my thirst.

As I was reading in the gospel of John yesterday, I read the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.  The woman had been married to five husbands, and no doubt was seeking for satisfaction in her life.  Have you ever been there?  Maybe you haven’t experienced five failed marriages, but you’ve been seeking for some kind of satisfaction in your life.  You may have tried a number of different things to fill that need, to quench that thirst.  People often turn to material possessions to fill that need.  Many turn to alcohol, drugs, or sexual promiscuity, seeking something to quench that need. 

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that He could give her what she needed to quench her thirst forever.  In John 4:13-14, Jesus told her, “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 will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  Jesus was speaking about the forgiveness that He offers for sin, and the sustaining grace He will bestow on all who believe that He is God and accept his gift of salvation.

If you have a thirst in your soul that cannot be satisfied, Jesus can quench that thirst for you.  Read the gospel of John and ask God to show you how he can quench your thirst.  He will do it, and your life will be forever changed!