Just Add Water

I

t hardly seems possible but I have been living in my house for twelve years now.  A while back, I was thinking about the moving process and all the wonderful people who helped me either by moving boxes, by carrying furniture, or by sending something to eat.  I was so blessed to have people willing to sacrifice their time, effort, and money to help me move.

As I was unpacking the myriad boxes I used during my move, I came across a small gift bag that one of my students had given me at the end of the summer.  Inside were things to snack on, a book mark, some neatly shaped paper clips, and a triangular box containing something really special. Inside this box was a foil pouch filled with enough ingredients to make a rather large pot of three-cheese mushroom soup.  I love mushrooms so I was eager to prepare the mix according to the directions and sit down to a piping hot bowl of soup.

Everything was included in the pouch except water.  When I poured the contents into the pot, it didn’t look very appetizing.  All I could see was brown powder with bits, pieces, and chunks of dehydrated mushrooms.  It didn’t really make my mouth water as I looked at what was supposed to become a delicious and nutritious bowl of soup.  The process, however, was not complete because I had not supplied the most essential ingredient—water!

I opened the cabinet, took down my measuring cup, held it underneath the faucet, and filled it with the required amount of water.  As soon as I added the water to the soup mixture, a wonderful metamorphosis took place.  The powder completely dissolved and the mushroom pieces grew to several times their size.  I put the pot on the stove and in just a few minutes I had my soup, all piping hot and very delicious.

As I thought about this the story of the woman at the well came immediately to my mind.  Here was a woman whose life, like my soup mixture, was dry and unappetizing.  Her soul was all dried up, her life was filled with shriveled chunks of meaning, and she lacked the essential ingredient that would give her life purpose. 

Day after day, she went to the well to draw water for her needs and when the water was gone, she went back to do the same thing over again.  All her efforts and all the water in the well could not satisfy the longing thirst in her soul.  Society couldn’t fulfill her needs, her many relationships could not fill the void in her spirit, and every day was an endless search to slake the parching thirst of her soul.

One day she met Jesus sitting beside a well.  He was thirst and asked her for a drink. She was surprised that Jesus, a Jew and a man, would speak to her.  Jesus, however, continued speaking with her and he offered her a drink of water.  The woman found it hard to accept water from Jesus because he had nothing with which to draw water.  However, Jesus was not speaking of well water, he was speaking of the water of life, the water that cools the thirst of the most parched soul and gives life from within.  Listen to what he told her as recorded in John 4:14, “but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

This was the water she had longed for, the water she had searched for all her life.  She took Jesus at his word and quenched her thirst forever.  One taste of living water and the dried recesses of her soul came alive, the shriveled areas of her life were filled with new meaning, and her life took on meaning and purpose.

All of us are just like this woman at the well and the soup mix in the packet.  Without the water that Jesus offers, our lives are just powder, dry and useless.  There is nothing appealing, nothing nourishing, and nothing appetizing about them.  But when we add Jesus to the mix, life takes on a whole new outlook.  We have a purpose and we can be used to refresh, nourish, and strengthen others. 

The ingredients on the back of the soup package said, “Just add water.”  That’s exactly what we must do spiritually as well in order to be all that God wants and intends for us to be. We are wrapped inside containers of dust, longing for the one thing that can bring us to life. What we need is Jesus Christ and the life-giving water her offers.  Have you added this living water to your life?  Don’t you think it’s about time you did?