The Ache of Longing: When Jesus Meets You at Your Well

 “Lord, why do I feel so wistful? So desiring of something I don’t have? I feel like I’m missing something.  Oh, how I long – how I yearn! And I hear it doesn’t end with a goal being met – the yearning continues on past milestones.  It doesn’t end with a ring, it doesn’t end with an ‘I do,’ it doesn’t end with a plus sign, or the ushering of life into the wide world.  They all come and go, and yet the yearning still remains in all of us.  The sense of being incomplete – unsettled – wanting more.  And so, I think, maybe – maybe I should ask You to help me to embrace the longing.  To greet the aching with a holy kiss.  To wrap my heart around the yearning and call it my “not yet home.”  Remind me, Lord, that one day You will bring me home and I will no longer be a sojourner.  One day I will rest, and truly feel as though I belong.  Until then, may you wrap me in Your constant arms and carry me forward with Your grace – meeting me in the hard places to lift my face and strengthen my heart.  In the aching, may your love be my balm to soothe and heal my soul.  Come into the caverns of my heart and make it Your home.” 

I read the raw and honest words I penned back in December, and my heart is encouraged.  I am reminded that the loneliness I experience is a gift because it reminds me that no one on earth can satisfy this ache and it points me back to the One who does satisfy.  The longing for more is always a longing for more of God. 

Back in February, I confessed my struggles with coveting and the desire for a relationship.  I mentioned that if I learned more of what victory in the season of singleness looks like, I’d write an update.  Now, I’m definitely not claiming that I’m living in this victory day in and day out, just yet.  But I want to be faithful to my word and share how God is encouraging me to see the beauty and victory that is available right here and now. 

This gift of encouragement has come to me at little moments throughout the hardest semester I’ve ever endured.  I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for the reminders that my Heavenly Father graciously revealed to me through Scripture and the words of wise friends.  So what exactly is it that spoke life and brought hope to my weary heart?  It started with Jeremiah 2:13 – “for 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.” It was the rebuke that I needed.  To be reminded that I had turned from Him and was trying to find something else to satisfy my longing – to quench my thirst. 

And then, my Perfect Papa continued to bring me back to John 4 – multiple times.  I read about the woman at the well and suddenly seemed to be looking into a mirror.  I had spent months going to different wells, weary and thirsty, in hopes of getting some respite from the intense longing.  Self-dependence, academic performance, approval of others, food, daydreaming, and some really low moments of perusing online dating sites just simply looking at available singles and then deleting my profiles.  Just being honest.

The Samaritan woman was settling day after day for the temporary satisfaction found in drawing up the well water in her own strength.  One day, Jesus was there waiting for her.  He, Himself, was weary and thirsty from a long journey and was resting before asking her for a drink of the water.  He understands the exhaustion.  He meets her where she is and speaks to her – for His heart wants more for her.  She’s settling for what she thinks is good enough– but He has something so much more for her.

Jesus tells 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.”  She was taken aback, what was this living water He spoke of?  He didn’t even have something to draw the water with.  She questions Him.  But He goes on to say, “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.”  He then reveals His identity to her as she continued with her questions – with the Truth revealed and the promises spoken, she leaves her jug at the well to tell of the Good News. 

There were three sources of water in Palestine: fresh running water called “living water”, ground water from a well, and runoff water collected in a cistern.  Jeremiah 2:13 points out that the Israelites had not only rejected God “the fountain of living waters” but had also settled for a broken cistern – which couldn’t even hold the worst source of water.  And in John, the woman is settling for the second best: stagnant, dead water.  I looked up the difference between living and dead water and one source states that because living water “is important for cell health, when your cells lack living water, it negatively affects every system of your body, causing fatigue and other health issues.”  Another states “drinking dead water allows cells to dehydrate” and “by the time tap water reaches you, it is usually devoid of any healthful properties.”  Walter Last sums it up nicely through his statement, “While polluted and dead tap water can contribute to the deterioration of our health, living water is one of the greatest healers.”  Also, well water can run dry, whereas living water from a stream is constantly flowing.  Now, of course, Jesus is using this physical analogy to point to a spiritual Truth – like He so often did.  But I believe these truths about actual water bring an even greater parallel to the difference between the two.  Living water brings life, whereas dead water brings destruction.

Am I satisfying my longing with earthly things that are temporal, or am I looking to Jesus for the satisfaction that is eternal?  Am I relying on myself, or am I resting and trusting in Him to provide?  Do I think that if I get to experience the gift of marriage one day, my husband will satisfy this longing I so often feel?  Or do I realize he’s a human I’d walk alongside of – not someone to put up on a pedestal and worship?  Oh, how I want to drink of the Spirit – to taste the goodness of the Lord – to receive the life He pours out.  And then, by His grace, pour it out as a blessing to others.  As I pour it out, His Spirit rushes back in and fills me – Living Water.  I want my heart and mind to be set on things above – not on things on the earth.  Yes, there are so many gifts that our Heavenly Father lets us enjoy – and it is His desire to give us good things.  But, which am I worshiping?  The gift or the Giver?  I don’t want to spend my time hoping for a gift, when my hope is found in Jesus alone.  

He meets me at the well.  He looks me in the eyes and I see He understands.  He gets it.  He knows what it's like to want.  To thirst.  To tire.  He doesn't laugh at me.  He doesn't think my heart is silly.  Instead, He cups my face with His hands and tells me "I've got so much more for you. Come to me, daughter."  And it is after this meeting, by His amazing grace (for who am I that He would speak to me?), that I'm able to repent - to leave my water jug - and go and tell.  I want to tell you of the life He gives - the satisfaction that only He can bring - and the destruction of settling for false gods.  Because there is no one and nothing like Him.

As I choose to press into the longing and seek more of God, I am gifted with a greater understanding of His love for me, and the mission He has called me to.  He gives the best gifts to His children – and right now, singleness is the best for me.  And trust me, there are some days where I’m in 100% agreement with Him on this.  But there are some days where I just have to trust Him.  I don’t want to go through my life wanting something I don’t have – or looking at other people’s stories and wishing they were my own.  I want to love God, love others, and love the story that God has written for me.  Victory is found in accepting the grace of my Perfect Papa – no matter what it looks like – and trusting that it is for His glory and my good.  I’m honored to have the gift of living my life as an adopted daughter of my Heavenly Father and co-heir with Christ.  And I want to love Him well – pursuing a relationship with the One who has been intentional and relentless in pursuing a relationship with me first.  

As Lauren Chandler says, “It’s okay to be thirsty.  God gives us thirst.  It’s where we satisfy our thirst that matters.”

“‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” John 7:37-39

Sources on Living Water:

http://energyfanatics.com/2015/08/02/living-water-versus-dead-water-which-is-better-increasing-your-energy-frequency/

http://www.ecosway.com/ecosway/en_US/hexagon_03.jsp

http://www.health-science-spirit.com/livingwater.html