Empty Wells

John 4:5-15

[Jesus] came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from His journey, sat down at the well. It was about six in the evening. A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

“Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her, for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

“How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”

“Sir,”said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”

“Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

In the Bible study my sister and I are doing together, we recently studied the well-known passage about the woman at the well. She comes to draw water, meets Jesus, but does not realize whom she has met. He promises a water that will quench her thirst, and she takes it literally. “Give me this water so I don't have to come here to draw water anymore,” she says.

Part of our discussion last week was about the empty wells in our life. We come to well after well, yet we have to keep coming, to keep drawing. Yet the wells never satisfy our thirst. Perhaps, they even leave us more thirsty. Digging up the empty wells in my life was not difficult, though it was difficult to be honest about how frequently I race towards empty wells... I am sure you have these empty wells too. Where am I going to seek peace, contentment, joy, hope, etc? When I am feeling withered, where am I turning for LIFE?

My empty wells may seem like good things, and while many of them are God's gifts, they are not wells of living water. A common list of empty wells could include:

• Marriage: this is one of God's greatest gifts in my life, but for reasons I am discovering are very different than the ones I thought they would be. I thought marriage would make me infinitely happy. My husband would buy me flowers and write me love notes, we'd always get along, and we'd live happily ever after. In reality, marriage shows me how utterly selfish and fearful I am, so it turns out to be a mirror reflecting the very things I have been trying to avoid my whole life. Recently, I saw a blog post about how Christian girls should ultimately be looking for a man like Jesus, because really, all Christian girls want to marry “Jesus”. What nonsense. A husband will never be Jesus, and to have that type of expectation will cause you to be extremely disappointed and your husband to be very hurt. You are a sinner, and you will marry a sinner, and by this very fact, marriage is an empty well. Can it be full of joy? Absolutely. But there is no way a spouse or the marriage union can quench the deepest thirst of your soul.
• Children: after marriage comes children, right? My children are two of the most amazing blessings God has ever given me and my husband. I cannot imagine life without them. But, for all of my years of dreaming about kids, having kids is certainly not a living well of water. Being a parent is exhausting. It's full time. You rarely if ever get a break. Thinking that having children and being a parent would satisfy my greatest desires was foolish at best.
• A Successful Job/Business/Career: I run a business. I work hard at my business. My business is growing. But to think that if my paycheck is a certain size or if I have a certain number of students or if our newsletter database is growing, I will be infinitely more peaceful, satisfied, etc.; well, again, I will find myself continually disappointed.

Of course, all of these things are very common, and most people (myself included) would nod and agree, saying, “Well, of course these things will never fulfill, never satisfy, never quench your thirst.” But what about the empty wells that we don't notice? The ones we look to day in and day out for thirst quenching. The ones we turn to before we turn to Christ? My current list looks like this:

• A good night's sleep
• A clean, organized house
• A cup of coffee or tea (caffeine anyone?!)
• Everything checked off on my to-do list
• Being in shape & feeling attractive
• Time away from the kids
• Endless social media scrolling

I know these are my empty wells, because all of them end up coming before any attempt to pick up my Bible every day. If I don't get a good night's sleep, I am crabby (ask my husband...). If the house is messy or disorganized, I get frustrated and am ready to chuck everything out the window. If I don't at least have a cup of hot coffee or tea each day, I feel like I'm missing something. If my to-do list doesn't get completed one day, my life feels out of control. If I am not in shape, I am insecure. I think that if I get time away from the kids, everything will be all better, and I'll be happy again, but I still have to come home. (p.s. I LOVE my children, but if you're a mom, you know that sometimes, a trip to Target to try on a pair of jeans by yourself is the equivalent of perfect bliss.) If I don't spend minutes upon minutes (upon hours sometimes) of social media scrolling, I feel like I am out of the loop, missing out on life's greatest fun and all of the cool “friendships” I have. I run to all of these things constantly, and while getting good sleep or drinking coffee or having an organized house are not inherently sinful things, they are deeply empty wells.

I have been wondering why I feel so drained and withered, but how could I not when the water I am drinking is from the brand of “a good night's sleep”? I have a potty-training/toddler-bed training two year old and a 4 month old. I haven't had a good night's sleep in 4 months. If that dictates me peace and my ability to receive and extend grace in my life, then I am in big trouble. How would I not be withered when I am drinking water from the brand “everything checked off my to-do list?” I do try really hard to get things done. Part of being a wife, mom, and business owner is really managing time well. But let's face it, some days, things don't get done. Projects fall to the back burner. The kitchen floor doesn't get swept. I don't get to the store with the kids or we end up ordering pizza for dinner because I got so side-tracked with two kids and trying to finish work for the day that I completely forgot to pull the meat out of the freezer for dinner. An accomplished to-do list can result in a really great “high” today, with a really immense let-down tomorrow if I am basing my heart's fullness on big black checks.

I am sure you get it. All in life will be empty wells, even God's good and perfect gifts of people, relationships, things, etc. Christ is the only full well, the place where we drink living water, the place where we drink water that truly quenches our thirst.

What are your empty wells?

I am praying that I would begin to more quickly and more constantly turn to Christ's full well of living water, rather than to continually run to empty wells and wonder why I feel withered.

John 7:37-38

On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink! The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.

Isaiah 55: 1-3

Come, everyone who is thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you without money,
come, buy, and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost!
Why do you spend money on what is not food,
and your wages on what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
and you will enjoy the choicest of foods.
Pay attention and come to Me;
listen, so that you will live.