Route 3, Box 120 was our address. Mom, Dad, my brother Tom, and I lived there on our small Mississippi farm. There was cotton and corn, chickens and hogs, and a pet mallard that flew away one day. Our drinking water came from an artesian well a few miles down the road, on the left just past the red brick church. Available to anyone, the well stood as a community oasis.
In an infinitely greater way, the little church we passed on the way to the well served as a community oasis too. Pastor Corley faithfully served there for decades, and, by God’s grace, many lives were eternally changed through his preaching. The weary were refreshed. I’m thankful that I was one of those weary souls who found refreshment there.
As a young boy, I sat and listened as Pastor Corley preached, and more than once my heart was stirred. Those stirrings created a thirst within me for that same living water that Jesus offered the woman at the well.
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
I wish I could say that I became a Christian when God first stirred my heart, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, I spent a few years drifting from one well to the next. Each of them promised to quench my thirst, to refresh my soul, but that never happened.
At a particularly low time in my life, I found myself back at that church from my childhood. The radio station where I worked promoted a series of nightly services at the church, so I decided to attend.
The visiting preacher spoke with a simplicity that was easy for me to understand. God, in His kindness, used the speaker’s messages to soften my heart. By Thursday night, I found myself desperately wanting to become a Christian. I went home and cast myself on the mercies of the Lord. I turned from my wanderings to the One who had shown me so much patience through the years. I pleaded with God to save me, and amazingly, He did. He changed me. Within my heart was that same “spring of water welling up to eternal life” that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman.
I had watched Christians for years, and I secretly longed for what they had. That night my longings were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Savior of the world became my Savior.
What about you? Have the things of this world left you empty? Do you have those same longings that I had? I plead with you to cast yourself on the mercies of God today.
Are you thirsty?
Are you empty?
Come and drink these Living Waters.
Love, forgiveness
Vast and boundless
Christ, He is our Living Water.
—Living Waters, Kristyn Getty and Ed Nash
Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to Me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David (Isaiah 55:1-3).
