Read: John 4:1-42 (the Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus)
“So the woman left her water jar, and went away…” (John 4:28 RSVCE).
The woman left her jar behind. She walked away from the well.
It wasn’t because she forgot about it. It didn’t mean that she was erasing the well from her story. In fact, when she came to the people in the town, she said, “Come see a man who told me all that I ever did.”
She told them about the stagnant water in that old well. About how she drew from it with that dirty jar. How it was never enough to last her more than a day.
She had to go back. Again and again.
Day after day.
Until the day she met Jesus, who was waiting for her in the very place He knew He would find her.
From His heart, she received streams of living water—water for her thirsty soul and a promise of true life for her weary heart.
She left behind her jar—not in an attempt to forget the past, but in surrender. She gave her past to the One who could redeem it. The One who could replace her jar with a heart expanded by Love Himself and exchange the old well for a spring of living water.
I see myself in the Samaritan woman. Desperately searching and aching for life, joy, peace, and fulfillment, and drawing it from the world time and time again… But it’s all just stagnant water from an old well in a dirty jar.
Jesus wants you to have living water, dear heart—streams of it. If you would only let Him give it to you.
As we continue through Lent, think about what is in your jar. What well do you keep coming back to?
The water in the well is murky. The jar is heavy. It doesn’t hold enough to last you more than a day.
Leave it behind.
“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14
From my heart to yours,
