Tuesday February 8, 2022

Today is Tuesday, February 8 and this week we are exploring what the Bible says about going deeper with God.

As I begin this time of prayer, I pause and become still. I calm my thoughts and silence my mind. I breathe slowly and deeply, and center myself upon the presence of God.

Pause and Pray

Blessed Lord, I want to go deeper with you. Break new ground in my heart and enable me to experience the depths of your loving presence. Enable me to dig down further spiritually and discover paths of christian maturity through the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

I cry from the depths of the living waters of God and praise him with the words of Psalm 42.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42:7-8

Pause and Pray

Jesus left Judea and returned to Galilee having to travel through the country of Samaria. A town called Sychar was near a plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. A well was there, known as Jacob’s well. Jesus’ disciples went to purchase food and Jesus remained alone. At around noon, in the heat of the day, Jesus sat down by the well, tired from his journey. A Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus asked her to give him a drink. Jews did not associate with Samaritans. Rabbis did not speak to women. She was an outsider, a Gentile and a sinner and the Messiah of God offered her the water of life.

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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:10-14

The woman says the well is deep. She came prepared to draw water, but this itinerant Jewish rabbi has nothing to drop down into the deep pools to extract the life-giving refreshment. She asks if he is greater than Jacob who gave her people the well and drank from it along with his livestock and family. Jesus offers the gift of God to her, living water. Jesus offers me the gift of God too. Have I known the gift of living water? Where do I get this living water? The water Jesus gives me satisfies my soul so that I will never be thirsty again. The water Jesus gives me will become a spring of water in me welling up to eternal life. Jesus is the Living Water that my soul most desperately longs for. I am thirsty. I am not necessarily physically dehydrated, I am spiritually thirsty. I fill myself up with the things of this world, which satisfy me for a while, but eventually leave me parched and empty. What I really seek is Jesus himself, the Living Water.

Ask: How deep do I need to look to find the living waters of my soul? Has the gift of Jesus become in me a spring of water overflowing with life?

Pause and Pray

Blessed Savior, please give me the gift of God. I am spiritually thirsty and long for the life-giving, soul-cleansing, nourishment and refreshment only you can provide. I come to the waters and seek to go deeper with you. Fill me with your Spirit until the well spring overflows. I read the words from John again and listen for the message you have for me.

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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:10-14

Ask: What image, word or phrase stands out to me when I slowly read this passage? What is God trying to say to me through these words of scripture?

Pause and Pray

I consider what the deep wells might represent in my life. Wells given to me by my forefathers and foremothers, wells that lead me to the living water of Jesus Christ. How deeply have I reached to draw what the wells of my faith have to offer? A well was a source of sustenance ancient peoples visited daily for what kept them alive. I consider how often I draw from the wells of my faith and the ways I partake of the living waters. What words best describe the current state of my soul? Words like dry, weary, parched, thirsty, weak, faint, empty. Or words like satisfied, quenched, full, filled, refreshed, overflowing. If my water has “run out” what must I do to receive the gift of God?

Pause and Pray

Come Lord Jesus, come and bring the deep waters that refresh my soul. I invite you into my thirsty home, weary from the worries of the world, weak from the weight of concerns, dry from your absence. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon me and increase the salvation of my soul as I go ever deeper with you into the waters of life. Amen.

Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:37-38

I leave this time of prayer with a soul that is quenched, bearing living water for those who thirst for the living God.

Amen.