Refreshing at the Well

Each of us at one time or another has made the comment, “That was really refreshing.” What refreshes you? A drink of cold water on a hot day?  A good night’s rest? An encouraging word from a friend?  

Refreshment means different things to different people.  In the Scriptures, the word refresh is sometimes translated rest.  In Matthew 11:28, Jesus issued an invitation to the crowds, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  In this case, they could have rest from the burden of their sins if they believed in Jesus.  In Mark 6:20, after His disciples reported to Jesus all they had done, He told them, “’Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.’” 

Perhaps the most well known passage about refreshing at the well is found in the fourth chapter of the Book of John.  It is important to note that John 4 is a literary narrative—a story.  Although there are no direct commands for believers today, there are biblical principles that can be applied.  This is an important issue in Bible interpretation. Narratives are not prescriptive.  They do not regulate Christian living. We do not need to go to Jacob’s well in Israel in order to meet Jesus.  But there are underlying theological truths in this narrative that can be applied to us today.  

As we come to the story of the woman at the well, the one overwhelming reality is that Jesus reveals His Messiahship.  But He also reveals His heart.  He defied tradition by talking with a woman of mixed breed—part of the cultic sect of Samaritans.  He asked her for a drink.  She responded, “You’re a Jew!  Why are you talking to me?”  He said that if she knew God’s gift and who it was that was talking to her, she would have asked Him for living water—fresh running spring water as contrasted to water from a well.  She didn’t get it.  So she said He couldn’t draw water because He didn’t have a bucket.  Did He think He was greater than Jacob who dug this well? He told her that everybody who drinks from Jacob’s well will get thirsty again.  But if anyone would drink even once from the living water He was offering, they would never thirst again, not ever.  

He asked her for a drink, but he never received it.  She came to draw water, but left without her waterpot.  The eternal had overshadowed the temporal.  

She had found the One who could give her living water so she would never thirst again.  She came to obtain physical refreshment, but she received spiritual renewal. He shouldn’t have talked to her.  She was a woman.  She was a Samaritan.  But what He told her changed her life.

So she went to tell the people in her hometown about a Jew who sat by a well.  She said, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?”  Now this probably scared some of them.  Perhaps her five husbands and the man she was living with were in the crowd. Some believe that she came to the well at noon because the women of the city, who came to draw water in the morning, would not associate with her because of her reputation.  She’s not exactly the type that would be recommended by your church for missionary support.  But Jesus sovereignly chose her to evangelize the city of Sychar—a city from which the disciples had just returned with no converts.  But God chose this woman to witness of His Messiahship.

She challenged them with a question, “This is not the Christ, is it?”  She invited them to the well, but she urged them to make the decision to believe in Jesus for themselves.  A great witnessing tool!

Today as believers, we each come to the well differently.  Some admire the beautiful blue color of the water.  Others measure the depth of the well.  Some want to take a vial of water to have it tested for impurities.  Some may just want to sit by the well and enjoy the peace and quiet.

But the important truth of this passage is that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. As such, He not only provides salvation to those who believe in Him, but he is the source of every spiritual blessing. He can be trusted to take care of us. But we can’t be refreshed if we don’t come to the source.   “My soul thirstsfor God, for the living God . . .” (Psalm 42:2)

What motivates you to ask for help, to come to the well for refreshment?  I can remember many years ago when my husband and I prayed next to our two-year-old son’s hospital bed as the doctor was preparing to perform a tracheotomy. Suddenly his breathing improved.  The doctor cancelled the procedure.  We were refreshed at the well.  

A few years ago, I joined hands with that same son as we prayed by my dying mother’s bedside. I had just returned home a few days earlier from a ministry trip with my husband in Russia. An ambulance had just brought my mother from a nursing home. The hospice staff was in our living room completing the necessary forms to enroll my mother. As I stood beside her bed with my son and my niece, my mother entered the presence of the Lord. Two days later, I had to speak at a women’s retreat. I was refreshed at the well.

What makes you thirsty? What desert are you walking in today? Perhaps you are discouraged or feel rejected. Maybe you are fighting a debilitating illness. Maybe you’re just weary, tired from the burdens of everyday life. It is often easy to look for human solutions. But the world can never truly refresh or satisfy us. If you go to a polluted well, you are going to get polluted water. Proverbs 25:26 reminds us, “Like a trampled spring and a polluted well, is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.” If you go to a well and the Lord is not there, it is just another hole in the ground.

During the Communist era, one Russian believer is said to have commented, “When everything has been taken away from you and you have nothing left but God, then you realize that God is enough.”

As we come to the well, the issue is not the size of our bucket or the depth of the well, but how often we drink.  We need to come to the well for the refreshing of the Lord, the Messiah, our Savior, moment by moment, one sip at a time!