A man nigh on to death from lack of water, wondering and lost, happened onto to an old abandoned homestead. Immediately he spotted a hand pump. Loosing no time, he began to work the handle with the little strength he had left…to no avail. He collapsed as much from loss of hope as from dire thirst. His body slumped, his mind blurred, his life ebbed away. But his eyes began to focus on the corner of a fluttering scrap of coarse brown paper held on the ground by a large stone next to the pump base. He pushed the stone aside with one hand as he tugged at the paper with the other. In large penciled letters as if written by a child was this message.

“The pump will only work if you prime it with water. Beneath this stone and instructions you will find a buried flask with just enough water to prime the pump. Do not drink the water, as thirsty as you may be. If you drink any water from the flask, there will not be water enough to prime the pump. You may or may not quench your thirst, but the flask will be empty and no one else will be able to drink from the pump. If you prime the pump you will have your fill of water and as much as you can carry and be able to fill the flask for the next person.

What would you do? If you drank from the small flask you may not survive beyond a day or two. Surely you would not be thinking beyond the moment or about those who came after you. If you drank enough to wet your mouth you would be ignoring the note and its sound logic. If you emptied the flask into the pump to prime it, you would be trusting in the pump and the one who wrote the note. Pump diaphragms were made of leather and dry rot would turn it to dust. Then the pump would not work no matter how much you prime it. As for the written message… well, it would take faith to trust what it said.

Our Heavenly Father says to pour yourself into Him; He will fill you up and make you a well of living water. Using the analogy above, we can see that in trusting His word and following Christ we need not ever thirst again. It requires only your faith, trust and obedience.

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” John 7:37-38