“One thing we can all agree on is no child should go hungry.”

This statement was recently received in an email by parents of children attending Manila Elementary School in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  The statement was made by someone who was willing to do something about students who may struggle with having regular healthy meals.  The statement was made by an anonymous donor who pledged funds to cover the cost of meals for students at the school for this current entire year.  The cost will be close to $100,000.

The donor’s message also included these words: “Our future doctors, police officers, educators, and business owners are attending elementary schools in our communities and many of them face food insecurity each day… Our goal with providing free school lunches to any Manila elementary school child is to … ensure everyone has a healthy meal each day.”

School administrators and faculty as well as parents of the children are all grateful for the donor’s generosity.  "It's a very generous donation that will bless many families here at Manila," said Rachelle Spencer, the school's principal. *

There is another hunger and thirst and impacts every living soul.  It is not a physical hunger and thirst; it is spiritual in nature.

Jesus encountered many “thirsty souls.”  One of these was a Samaritan woman (read John 4).  She had come out to draw water from Jacob’s well in the heat of the day.  To the woman’s surprise, Jesus asked her for a drink of water.  She was shocked because she was a Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew.  “For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans,” we are informed by John (4:9).

Jesus said to the woman: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Jesus also said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water [i.e., the water in Jacob’s well] will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13-14).

The woman said to Jesus, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw” (John 4:15).

Reading the rest of the account, it appears that the woman had sought to quench her deep spiritual thirst in men, for she had been married five times and was now living with a man (John 4:16-18).

Jesus pointed her to the only thing that could quench her spiritual thirst and give her eternal life: Living Water, which involves a relationship with the Heavenly Father through His Son Jesus.

Jesus was teaching this woman – and us – that only God can quench the deep spiritual hunger and thirst that resides in us.  Trying to satisfy those deep longings with anything or anyone else will only leave us famished.

God will quench the spiritual hunger and thirst of those who place their faith and trust in Jesus who died on the cross for our sins (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will continue to cleanse from sin and give life to those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).

Jesus doesn’t want any of us to be hungry and thirsty with spiritual longings and try to fill them with things that can never satisfy.  “Come to Me,” He invites, “and you will never thirst again.”

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from “Anonymous donor pledges nearly $100K to cover meals at Utah elementary school” by Ladd Egan of KSL-TV, www.ksl.com.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org