The Water Of Life
by Barbara Chadwick
 
I went downstairs to get some water to take with us in the car. It is an hour and a half drive to town so I always take a bag of snacks  - and water. Carrying the bottle upstairs got me to thinking.

Looking at a glass of water it seems so, I don't know, innocuous or plain. And yet we simply cannot live without it. Our bodies need water for survival. Then there are the basics of bathing, cooking, cleaning.

I grew up in town and never had to think about whether there was enough water but when we went to visit relatives in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas I learned that water was precious. We had to guard the water that was in the well and use it judiciously.

Jesus was tired of walking and sat down at a well in Samaria.   A woman came to get water. He asked her for a drink. When she was amazed that this man - this Jewish man - would even speak to her much less ask her to serve him water, he said, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. John 4:10 
She was perplexed and didn't understand and said, Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do you get that living water?  Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. John 4: 7-14

And again in John chapter 7 Jesus says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
John 7:37-38

Let us never take for granted the water we use in daily life and let us never look askance at the water of life that Jesus offers.