The Desert Experience: Living Water
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
(Psalm 63:1)
In a desert walk there will always be an oasis along the way. When you reach breaking point and think you can’t go another step, the sound of running water will fill your ears. God has provided a break from the heat and dust in the form of an unexpected spring of living water.
One such oasis is En Gedi (“Spring of a Young Goat”) which lies west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qumran Caves. The spring of water must have been a fountain of hope sent by a faithful God to encourage David and his weary band of followers. No wonder he wrote Psalm 63 during that time of exile.
In Hebrew culture, there were two types of water, “living” water and “cistern” water. Living water was water untouched by human hands. Only living water could be used for ritual cleansing in the temple and synagogues.
Cistern waters, poured by human hands, were stagnant and murky, filled with dust and insects. These were “dead” waters.
The prophet Jeremiah warned God’s people of the danger of forsaking God’s living water. He told the Israelites they were trying to quench their thirst “in broken cisterns,” instead of seeking the “living water.”
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water (Jeremiah 2:13 NKJV).
When Jesus spoke of the “living” water, the people of His day would have clearly understood the reference.
The Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, where Jesus restored the sight of a blind man (John 9:7) was fed by the Gihon Spring. Gihon means “gushing.” The spring played an important part during the Feast of Tabernacles. Each night the high priest would fill a golden pitcher with living water for the water libation on the Temple’s altar. On the last day of the feast, the high priest would march around the altar seven times, while the people chanted prayers for God to bring the rain (living water), for the next year’s crops, and then ceremoniously poured the living water onto the sacrificial pyre.
It was at this point that Jesus stood up and shouted, “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 NKJV).
The Samaritan woman went to the well to draw water at midday, not in the cool of the morning when water was usually drawn, probably to avoid the condemnatory looks and whispers from the other women. She had been married five times and was now living with a man. She had no idea she was about to meet the “Living Water” Himself. She went to get a pitcher of cistern water and instead received the living water of grace which washed away her sins and cleansed her soul.
Jesus answered, “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” (John 4:13 NKJV).
His living water is available to you too. There is no sin too deep that He cannot cleanse and give you a fresh start. Stop going to the cistern for dead water and come to the living well of His grace.
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation (Isaiah 12:3 NIV).
