7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10Jesus 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." 11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" 13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
There is a longing in my heart. A longing to be free. A longing to have no responsibilities. A longing to have to make no decisions. A longing to not have to do anything.
Sometimes when I feel a cold brisk breeze my hand goes up to my mouth as if I'm taking a drag of stoge. Sometimes when I feel stressed or tired my arm motions up as if I'm taking a sip of Jack on the Rocks and I blow out as if I'm smelling the alcohol on my breath. Sometimes when I'm driving I imagine myself going down the turnpike at 140mph per hour redlining every gear. Other times I want to go into a party and pick a fight with the biggest kid there just to feel the adrenaline again. To feel the heart pump, to feel the focus that comes from being in a high risk situation, the pins and needles that comes all over your face. Then I realize this...I'm longing for something. I long to have never taken that "green" pill where I realized everything I've been and done was a sinful rebellion against God. I long to be have stayed ignorant. Stress free. Worry free. I long to be "free" in my ignorance.
When I was purchasing my house, when I asked someone about debt they said "Everyone's in debt. The older you get the more debt you get into. The richest person really is the person in the least amount of debt." And I believed it. It made sense. You grow up you go to college, school debt. You get out you buy a car. Car debt. You grow up you get married. Wedding Debt. You have a family so you buy a house. Mortgage debt. Etc. Etc. Etc. Then I realize all these different debts, all these responsibilities, and have to's becomes chains, chains that bind you down to this world. You can't go when you want to. You can't act when you want to. Everything you do needs a decision and you need to worry about 10 other things in order to just do one thing. Then through all these things there comes a longing. Maybe thats why men go through Mid Life Crisis because by the time they get to that age they can't handle it anymore. Maybe thats why some people cheat? Because they have so much longing but they realize nothing in their lives satisfies so they go out to search for something new?
Lately, I've been feeling like this. I just want to grab my bag middle of the working day and walk out. Go to the nearest gas station fill up and start driving out west. I wish sometimes I lived in the mountains and the only decision I had to make was "what kind of animal am I gonna hunt to eat today?". Then today I realized this. All this longing that people have and that I have. Its just a superficial and surface level sign of something so much deeper in the root of our hearts. Its a longing for God. Jeff Chang yesterday said something like "If you strive for Earth you won't get Heaven or Earth but if you Strive for Heaven you'll get Heaven and Earth" and He also said "If your joy and satisfaction is in Christ then everything else becomes that much better".
I think this is something we always have to remember. When I was reading about Daniel Fast and all these things one thing that I kept reminding myself was this fact "Most of the time when you feel hungry its not because you are actually lacking food. Its really because your body is dehydrated and your body is actually craving water". Most of us when we are hungry tend to stuff ourselves to satisfy our hungry, then we gain weight, become full to the point where we want to puke, become unhealthy, and miserable at the fact that we are fat. This happens I think when we forget that our longing really isn't a longing for Sin or this World rather its a longing for God. So instead of trying to satisfy our needs with alcohol, relationships, money, materials, and all the crap that the world can offer that will leave us in Debt and chained even stronger to this world. We need to realize that we are actually longing for the Water that gives Eternal life. We are longing for a deeper and personal relationship with Christ.
We are not hungry for Sin, we are thirsty for Jesus Christ.
