WELLS OF LIVING WATER

WELLS OF LIVING WATER

I’ve been going to the same eye doctor for over twenty years to get my glasses. But since my insurance changed, I needed to venture out and find a new doctor. The familiar places we go to meet our needs remind me of the water wells in the Bible. And the usual place where I got my glasses was a well that just dried up. In Genesis, we learn God’s answer to Isaac when his well dried up, and we can learn much from Isaac’s experience.

 

Genesis 25:11 tells us Isaac settled near Beer-Lahairoi (“the well of the Living One who sees me”). He raised his sons there and had a good life, but then “there was a famine in the land” (Gen. 26:1). That was the beginning of his next journey.

 

When famine hit Isaac, he knew he had to move. He trusted God to lead him to a new well for himself and his family. When his father, Abraham, faced a famine, he went to Egypt, so Isaac thought to do the same. Sometimes in life, we move too fast into following what others have done instead of stopping a minute to find out God’s will for us. God specifically told Isaac: “Go NOT down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of” (Gen. 26:2).

 

Isaac had a significant need, but his journey with God differed from Abraham’s.

 

God told Isaac to go to where the Philistines were, in Gerar, which was North, in the opposite direction from Egypt, which was South. So he went, and he prospered. “Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great: For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds and great store of husbandry: and the Philistines envied him” (Gen. 26:12-14).

 

Isaac prospered in Gerar, but now he was in another type of famine, a social one. The people around him were not favorably responding to him anymore, and spiritually he felt it was time for him to move on. But he knew he would need to find a well with enough continuing water supply to support the people and animals who relied on him. So he tried to dig in the old wells, but “the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth” (v.15).

 

Then Isaac found what he thought was a great well of water. “And Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of springing water” (v. 19). “Springing water” is “living water.” Verse 20 says: “And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, ‘The water is ours.’”  So Isaac had to keep moving.

 

This part of the story is so unique and pertinent. Isaac found living water, but others said it was theirs. He called the well “Esek,” a word that means “contention.” It just wouldn’t work for him and his entourage to live in a place of strife, so once again, he had to move on. He found a place to dig another well, and again, it wasn’t good for him. Then he dug another well, and the Philistines finally let him be. That well was good for the time being, but the journey continued. Eventually, Isaac left the wells he dug in the land of the Philistines, and he went East to Beersheba and dug a new well, where he stayed and prospered.

 

When we know that a specific well in our lives has dried up, we need to be willing to keep moving until we find something that truly resonates with our Spirit, something that we know is spiritually right for us. We check it out with God and test it. Then if it doesn’t resonate with us, and if it’s not giving us the living water we need, we have to be willing to move on as Isaac did.

 

Since my eye doctor “well” of 25 years dried up, it turned out that my insurance broker, who is also a Christian and a good friend, told me of her eye doctor. So I made an appointment, and an amazing thing happened. The new doctor had some equipment that was more accurate than the old doctor’s equipment. The old doctor told me I was in desperate need of cataract surgery. But with the new equipment of the new doctor, I found out that I didn’t need the surgery at all and all I needed was new glasses! Praise God!

 

Walking by the Spirit of God is a marvelous journey. Let’s be sensitive to where we are on the journey and sensitive to the urging to move on if need be. Let’s not criticize others on their journey or doubt our own.

 

Jesus told the woman at the well, in John 4:14: “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The well of water that we always have in us is the gift of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the ability to communicate with our Lord and follow Him in the paths He sets before us.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

MORE TRUE BIBLE LESSONS AND STORIES TO EMPOWER OUR SOULS: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=WINGS%3A+A+Journey+in+Faith+by+carolyn+molica&crid=3GBPN2RO8RZMF&sprefix=wings+a+journey+in+faith+by+carolyn+molica%2Caps%2C257&ref=nb_sb_noss