Wells vs. Springs

Adam preached Sunday from John 4: 1-42. As I listened to the familiar story of the woman at the well I was struck by how God wants to give us things that are beyond our imagination or wildest dreams. I think it is illustrated by the difference between a well and a spring. The woman wanted to get water without trips to the well, but Jesus wanted to give her something she had never seen before that is so much better than a well.

¹¹The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." ¹³Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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." ¹⁵The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." [John 4]

The sad thing is that we have a tendency to not only prefer wells rather than springs but we also want to dig the well, even when it is not really "working for us".

¹²Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,

declares the LORD, ¹³for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. [Jeremiah 2]

If you have a well you have to go back every day to get water. Springs just flow and they are "fresh" water. That's what God wants to give us:

³⁷ On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" [John 7]