A Well Of Our Own

By Cynthia Ruchti

This morning, did you have other clothes to change into besides the ones you wore yesterday? More than one choice for shoes? Even if you chose to skip breakfast, was there something in the cupboard or the fridge you could have had?

How many people in the world ache for something as simple as clean drinking water?

We have so much more than we realize. My husband and I are among those who have one well for the two of us. What extravagance! It’s an old country well, but it has more than enough good, clean water to meet our needs. My ice cube maker probably uses more water in a day than some Third World villages see. Decadence.

God centered many of His most poignant moments of reaching out to humanity on the setting of a public well. When the Lord explained to the people the rich blessings of the Promised Land of Canaan, He specifically mentioned that it was a land known for its good wells. Deuteronomy 6:11—“And houses full of all good things…and wells you did not dig…”

Because a well was a gathering place in ancient times, as it is today in many Third World countries, wells were often the site of relationship-building and deep discussions, as recorded in both the Old and the New Testaments.

Wells equaled provision. Hagar, in a tangled mess of misguided attempts to usurp God’s divine plan, fled from her mistress Sarai. At the lowest moment for Hagar, when she feared for her illegitimate son Ishmael’s life and despaired of all hope, the Bible tells us that “God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink” (Genesis 21:19). God provided not just a drink, but a sign that He cared and that He still had the power and the desire to fulfill His plan, even for her. Jesus did the same for the Samaritan woman at the well in the Book of John.

Wells symbolized provision, refreshment, life, longing, home.

PRAYER: Thank You, Lord, for providing a Well of Living Water. May Your life within us spring up and overflow to others. And may we ever seek ways to refresh other people by pointing them to the Well—to You.

“For whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” John 4:14 KJV.

 Today’s devotional is by Cynthia Ruchti, writer/producer of THE HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME radio ministry and president of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). Cynthia’s debut novel—They Almost Always Come Home—releases from Abingdon Press May 1, 2010–http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZb0by984g. Cynthia writes stories of hope-that-glows-in-the-dark (www.cynthiaruchti.com).