Everything was dead, all around. Flood water had killed the lush meadow, even the wild privet thicket was now a spindly stand of corpses. Water is a life sustainer. It can also be a killer. The inundation had lingered long and smothered everything, leaving behind only debris and several interconnected puddles of stagnant water.

The brownish green water had a strange copper tint as August broiled the ground.

The putrid pools were repulsive to the senses. Sight and smell screamed the warning—Don’t drink, don’t touch, step back!

In a survival situation, I would have boiled that botulism until it all evaporated and had nothing to drink.

We are all thirsty! And a thirsty soul is tempted to drink from any well no matter how repulsive it should be.

God created us with both a physical and spiritual need for water. The physical need is plain, our bodies must have hydration or we will die. A person can live for weeks without food, but only a few days without water.

We also have a need for “spiritual water” or as Jesus calls it, “Living water.” Jesus had a divine appointment with a woman in Samaria. He came to a well with a physical thirst, she came with a spiritual thirst.

His disciples had gone into town for food; Jesus sat alone at the well. She approached, water bucket in hand, wondering why this Jewish man was in Samaria and why he waited by the well. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her. The surprised woman replied, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” (John 4:9).

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water” (John 4:10). Jesus’ answer confused the woman. She noticed that He didn’t have a bucket and rope to drop into the deep well. Jesus couldn’t even get to the water, how could He it give to her.

Jesus was not referring to earthly H2O.

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.” (John 4:13).

Even good, clean, pure, refreshing water satisfies only temporarily. And deep in the soul of every human being is a thirst that only God Himself can satisfy. Jesus quenches the deep burning in our souls!

There is a lot of water out there in the world, some is easily identified as polluted, but a parched soul is tempted to drink any water. Those putrid pools of sin only further pollute the soul. There is the deceptive water, it looks good on the surface but death lies beneath.

Nobody would drink from those foul, disgusting aforementioned mud holes. I was repelled at the sight. Yet we are tempted to taste test spiritual poison in its many different offerings.

All around us, the prevailing culture “calls evil good and good evil, they put darkness for light, and light for darkness, they put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20). It says, “Try this, I will be good for you.”

Lies! For the more they drink from Satan’s reservoir of sin, the less satisfying it becomes. So they drink up, more and more until the foul fluid is flowing through their spiritual veins.

Why starve? Why drink poison? Why thirst?

Drink from the deep well of God, and never get thirsty again—ever!

Garland Boyd is pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Brookhaven. He can be reached at 601-833-6760. Visit him on the web at www.insightsfromoutside.com.