When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, "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."
"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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."
I'm recalling a devotional that was given by Bishop Thomas last semester in Egypt. He told a story about a little boy who asked the question, "How can Jesus be inside of us? If God is bigger than us, then he cannot fit in us. How can we be in God AND God be in us?" Everyone he asked, including Bishop Thomas, would reply simply that God is everywhere. But the boy was unsatisfied and upset that no one seemed to see the magnitude of this dilemma. After much contemplation and prayer, Bishop Thomas went back to the boy with an illustration. On the table was a large vase filled with water. This vase represented Jesus. Also on the table was an empty cup that represented us. It was easy to pour water from the vase into the cup, but the cup would quickly run dry if it offered water to something else. Bishop Thomas then took the cup and submerged it into the vase. Now the cup was in the vase water...and the vase water was in the cup.
I'm also recalling an illustration that I remember from my high school youth pastor that has always stuck in my mind. He showed a picture that looked similar to this:
In this picture representing our life, we have made God a part of it. He's even a bigger part of it than the other things listed. I remember looking at this picture and understanding it. Yup, that looks about right!
Then my youth pastor showed this picture:
Here's the thing. This whole life really isn't about me. It's God's. And my life is a part of God's story. It's not the other way around. Sometimes I still think so backwards.
God has been chasing me with the story of the woman at the well and with his words, "...whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst." If we are submerged in Christ, than his water will forever fill our little cup. We can pour out and not run dry because we live in the source of all water.
Sometimes I get disillusioned into thinking that I'm not complete yet--that completion will come after finding the right guy or after finding the right job, etc. But the truth is that neither of those things can complete a person. It still wouldn't satisfy.
Jesus offers completion. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I am His and He is mine. I belong to Christ.
In trying to grasp what exactly this means, I have the story of the Ugly Duckling popping into my head. I know it's a silly example, but the duckling (that's actually a swan) can never seem to fit anywhere. Even though it has a good home with the ducks, it isn't satisfied and able to understand its true beauty until it finds his real mother. Maybe that's how it is with us. We can't understand our unique beauty or place in the world until we are reunited with our creator and true Father.
"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." -John 3:38
