Life Giving Water

 

“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’” *

After Al’s shoulder joint replacement in August, he and I received valuable assistance at home from a nurse, physical therapist and occupational therapist. The nurse and PT discharged Al after three or four visits. But his OT ended up staying with him for several weeks.

Besides giving Al practical post-surgery advice, she was a wealth of information on a variety of subjects. Her big thrust however, something she emphasized with all her clients, was the importance of drinking enough water.

Even though we were familiar with that idea, it was the first time Al and I heard someone give a recipe for figuring out how much water to drink each and every day.

“Take your body weight and divide it by two,” she explained authoritatively. “That’s how many ounces of water you should be drinking.”

Drinking half of your body weight in ounces seemed like a lot! Al and I glanced at each other, as I sat beside him taking notes.

 “I know,” she said, seeing our faces. “Start in the morning and end by dinner.” She went on to explain that most of the fluid would be eliminated before going to bed. “You’re close to the bathroom anyway so you can go during the day,” she said, knowing what we were thinking, “and you won’t be up all night if you stop drinking water around 5 or 6 o’clock PM!”

During the course of her visits, the OT continued to bring this up. She told about some of her clients whose health improved radically after increasing the amount of water they drank on a regular basis. It benefited the elderly especially, who are prone to dehydration.

One day after checking Al’s blood pressure she noted that it was lower than usual.

“How much water have you had today?” She asked Al. He confessed that he hadn’t had much. After he consumed several more ounces, she took it again. We were surprised to see that his blood pressure was normal.

I decided to follow her advice, figuring that 60 ounces a day should be enough for my body weight, including a cup of tea before breakfast. Sixty ounces wasn’t a great deal more than what I had been drinking previously and was fairly easy to finish by dinner. It’s was just a matter of remembering to do it.

  There is nothing quite like a drink of cold water on a hot day. Once while a young boy was visiting us in Springville, he happened to be playing outside when the drip irrigation system began to operate. Water ran through the spaghetti lines and began flowing into the hanging baskets on the beams over the patio.

I happened to look out the kitchen window in time to see him standing under one of the plants, with his mouth wide open, catching the stream of dirty water pouring out the bottom of the basket!

“Don’t do that,” I yelled through the open window. However, he ignored me and kept drinking. I had to usher him inside. No amount of explaining would convince him that the water he was drinking was dirty!

Jesus was traveling through Samaria on a hot day, when he sat down by a well, tired from his journey and most likely very thirsty. A woman from a nearby village came along with a water jar, planning on drawing water from the well.

When Jesus asked her for a drink, they began a conversation that developed into a life-changing experience for the Samaritan woman. Jesus revealed some things about her life that shocked her.

Was this a prophet? Yes, but more than a prophet. When he told her that he was the Messiah, she dropped the jar and ran back to the village, spreading the news to everyone she met.

Did Jesus get his drink? Maybe he had to draw the water himself or perhaps one of the disciples helped him later.

And the woman? Evidently, the purpose of her going to the well was forgotten in the excitement of meeting Jesus, the Messiah. She however, had a taste of the living water Jesus offered. Desperately in need of God’s love and forgiveness, she found it that day.

Jesus—the source of water, living water. Come to him and drink!

*John 4:10 NIV