John 4:11. “The woman said to [Jesus], ‘Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?’”

The Samaritan woman’s question about living water is not just a question; it is also a confession. She doesn’t have “living water” and doesn’t know where to get it. I know this woman, and I understand her. Maybe you do too.

I have plunged my thirsty bucket into many a well, as I suspect we all have. I can see the tempting lips of the wells of relationships, work and busyness, success, accomplishment, reputation, perfectionism, easy answers and well-earned control. I’ve drunk deeply from each of them. I left just as thirsty as when I arrived.

The living water Christ offers is not found in wells of opinions or words, of what I have accomplished, or of my self-made security. The living water Christ offers gushes from a holy spring within each of us—within our Samaritan sister. That bottomless well, primed by the Holy Spirit, has always been there.

*Originally written for and published by Forward Day by Day.