Give Me Water!
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As I read today’s text, Revelation 21:6, during my morning devotional time, I vividly remembered a time when I was willing to pay almost anything for even a little water. I had been flying from Germany to Tanzania when my colon started bleeding— more like gushing, it seemed to me. I aborted my flight in Johannesburg, South Africa, and was examined by a doctor in the airport. He suggested I see my own doctor as soon as possible.
I tried desperately to get a flight back to Germany, but the airlines would not cooperate. Finally, I was able to get a business-class ticket home to Maryland on Air France, transiting through Paris. I called Frankfurt, and my husband insisted he would meet me at the airport in Paris. As I waited for my flight, I drank orange juice and water, which were available in the business lounge. By the time I arrived in Paris, I was still bleeding, and I was starting to pass out at the slightest exertion. It was a long walk from where my plane had landed to the gate to meet Dick and my flight home. I was getting desperate for water—a sign of shock, I am told. Suddenly, along the side of the concourse, there was a kiosk selling water. “How much for a bottle?” I asked. Five euros. It seemed exorbitant to me, but I did not hesitate to pay for it.
As I sipped my expensive water, I remembered a story recorded by John. He tells us that Jesus had to walk through Samaria—not because it was the only way but because He wanted to meet a Samaritan woman who was open to His word.
They met at Jacob’s well. I have been there, and the well is deep, and the water is cold. It was a lot of work for this woman to draw water. In their conversation, Jesus said, “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” ( John 4:10, NIV). When the woman questioned this, He added, “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” (verses 13, 14, NIV). Are you thirsty like I am? We, too, are promised that now, today, and on the new earth we can have that “water without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Revelation 21:6).
Ardis Dick Stenbakken
