Will You Give Me A Drink?

Yesterday in high school group we told John's story of the woman at the well. Afterwards, we gave students the opportunity to write their deepest secrets. Is there a time you have felt lonely or secretive? What was that like? How does it feel to write your secret? How would your parents or teachers react to your secret? How would Jesus respond to what is on your paper?

Three high school boys shared around my table. One was open and friendly, pleasantly aware and blessedly naïve. One was deep in pain, writhing in silence and fear. He clearly wanted to be left alone but he is also desperate for somebody to understand him. One was foreign, a lonely student from Germany struggling to speak English phrases. And in each of these boys I saw reflections of
myself, my story, my pain. As we shared our fears together, I could feel the barriers between us. They are walls of distrust and unfamiliarity defensively erected to protect us from people who have not understood, who haven't listened, who haven't anything to offer us but more brokenness. And so we have little to offer one another.

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"Will you give me a drink?" Jesus asked the Samaritan woman, during a long journey. He offered her living water of his own as she dipped into the well of her past and offered it to Jesus.

I have a past too, a well from which I draw a bucket full of shame, loneliness, accomplishments, love, acceptance, regret, triumphs, contentment, all mixed together in the drink offered to Jesus.

"Will you give me a drink?"

On this dusty journey, Jesus and I drink of one another: he from my mixed well, and I from his living spring. And together, we are a circle of blistered travelers drawing from our wells and together drinking Jesus, the Spring of Life.