Good afternoon! Greetings on this beautiful March day. Our Lenten devotional for today comes to us from Vanessa Roberts Bryan, who serves as the Assistant Dean in Student Development Services. For those of you who might not know Vanessa yet, she recently started working at TCU last September. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to get to know Vanessa over these past few months, and have come to appreciate many things about her including her very deep connection to her faith. That wonderful quality is present in everything she does, from her dissertation topic to the warmth and hospitality she greets every person with each day. Her welcoming presence, bright smile, and exuberant energy invite you in and make you feel a part of whatever it is she’s doing. I’m so thankful for her presence here at TCU and for her willingness to write a devotional for us today. May you be blessed and challenged by her words for us today. Blessings on your journey…
“So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.””
John 4:5-15
ometimes life can be challenging. We might feel like we are in the desert with the sun beating down on us. At these moments in our lives we thirst; we long for something to hydrate us, to keep us alive. But oftentimes, we don’t turn to Jesus when we are thirsty in the desert of life. Just like the Samaritan woman in the Gospel visiting the well in the heat of the day, we sometimes doubt if Jesus can quench our thirst. She said to Him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” She doubted that Jesus could provide the water she needed.
Are there times in your life when you don’t let Jesus in? You say to yourself, “I don’t have time. My life is too complicated. Why would Jesus love me when I’m such a mess?” This is the desert. This is the time that Jesus is saying to you “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Jesus wants to quench your thirst; He wants to fill you with the living waters and give you eternal life. All we need to do is trust in Him and His love for us. Jesus knows our every need and understands us. He is what we are thirsting for.
During the desert of Lent, may you trust in Jesus to provide the water that will become a spring inside of you, gushing up to eternal life.
Gracious and loving God, we thirst; we thirst for you. Help us to fully trust in you as we go through the challenges in life. Help us to turn to you, knowing that you provide the living water to quench our thirst. May we find peace and mercy in your everlasting love. Amen
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