Full of Grace and Truth: Healing Hunger and Thirst

I love springtime. There’s something about the air getting a little warmer, the sun shining brighter, the sky getting bluer (Is that a word?), and everything growing again after a hard, cold winter. And I like the nice spring breezes, the birds singing, and the sounds and sights of people doing things outside. Life has returned!

That’s the upside. Now for the downside. Inevitably, spring gives way to summer. Heat and humidity arrive, and doing yard work becomes increasingly a chore. There’s nothing like getting hot, sweaty, and exhausted after spending several hours outdoors on a Saturday mowing and trimming in 95 degrees and 100% humidity. By the time you’re done, you’re absolutely parched and running on empty. The first thing I want to do in moments like that is down an ice cold beverage to wash away the thirst and grab a bite to eat to take care of the hunger.

While it’s important to take care of our bodies when we’re thirsty and hungry, there’s another kind of thirst and hunger that needs to be satisfied too. In fact, our spiritual thirst and hunger is far more important.

It’s amazing the things we humans will do to try to satisfy that thirst and hunger. We’ll try filling ourselves up with fame, fortune, and pleasure. We’ll try to do so through our careers, our possessions, and our relationships. We’ll even go so far as to abuse drugs, alcohol, food, sex, money, and even people, all in the name of getting what we want. And yet through it all, we still remain very empty inside. Why? Because as the writer of Hebrews recognized, while there can be pleasure in sin, it is a fleeting pleasure and can never bring the true joy, contentment, and peace that we all seek. In fact, all that it really does is leave us craving for more.

Part of the problem is that we often don’t even recognize that we are suffering from spiritual thirst and hunger. And so we just keep chasing after things that don’t meet our true need, and the thirst and hunger persist.

There was a Samaritan woman who serves as a perfect illustration of what I’m talking about. We find her story in John 4 when Jesus engaged her in a conversation at a well. What a perfect setting for Jesus to reveal just how thirsty she really was.

After being stunned that Jesus, a Jew, would ask her, a Samaritan, for a drink, Jesus said, “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 (John 4:10).”

Not understanding what Jesus meant, the woman replied, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water (John 4:11)?”

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 4:13-14).”

Now Jesus has her right where he wants her.  Her curiosity is piqued. She just had to have the water Jesus was offering. The time was right to expose her true thirst.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true (John 4:16-18).”

The text does not come out and clearly say why she had had so many husbands. It’s possible that all of them may have died. It’s certainly true that the well-being of women in that culture depended greatly on their being married. But the fact that she was now living with a man and not married to him could suggest that something more may have been going on in her heart. It’s possible that the number of relationships she had had in her life indicated a desire to find fulfillment, happiness, and love in male companionship. Whatever the case may be, she was about to find what her thirsty heart longed for.

She could clearly see that Jesus was some kind of a prophet. He had to be, otherwise how would he know these things about her. In an apparent attempt to learn more about him, she said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he (John 4:25-26).”

With that declaration, her life was changed forever. Leaving her water jar behind, she immediately went into town and told everyone about Jesus. The love that she had been searching for all her life she found in her Messiah, her Savior, her God. Her thirst was quenched at the moment she realized who he was – perfect love!

It is the knowledge that we are perfectly loved that brings the fulfillment, contentment, and peace that we all long for. That’s because when we know we are loved, we also know that we are accepted, and all our fears of incurring the wrath and condemnation of God begin to be washed away when we experience the love and acceptance of our heavenly Father. Just as Jesus didn’t condemn the woman at the well, so he doesn’t condemn us. Instead he desires to root out of us everything that prevents us from knowing his pure and perfect love. He doesn’t give us what we expect we deserve; he gives us what we need in order to ultimately have the relationship with him that he richly desires. That’s grace, and that’s how our thirst is finally quenched.

It’s the same with our spiritual hunger too. Just as Jesus fed the 5,000 to satisfy their physical hunger, so he is ready to feed us all with the food we truly need. And what is that food? Let’s allow Jesus to explain.

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty (John 6:32-35).”

Jesus indeed is the bread of life and the living water. He brings life to all who are hungry and thirsty because he is full of grace and truth. Let him bring satisfaction and fulfillment to your life.