From the Heart

Quenching the Soul's Thirst, August 24

Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. John 4:15. FH 248.1

The woman was so astonished at His words that she rested her pitcher on the well, and, forgetting the thirst of the stranger and His request to give Him to drink, forgetting her errand to the well, she was lost in her earnest desire to hear every word.... FH 248.2

Jesus now abruptly changed the subject of conversation and bade the woman call her husband. She frankly replied, “I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” FH 248.3

As the past of her life was spread out before her, the listener trembled. Conviction of sin was awakened. She said, “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.” And then, in order to change the conversation to some other subject, she endeavored to lead Christ into a controversy upon their religious differences.... FH 248.4

The conviction of the Spirit of God had come to the heart of the Samaritan woman.... No teaching that she had hitherto heard had aroused her moral nature and awakened her to a sense of her higher need. FH 248.5

Christ reads beneath the surface, and He revealed to the woman of Samaria her soul thirst, which the water from the well of Sychar could never satisfy.... FH 248.6

The natural thirst of the woman of Samaria had led her to a thirst of soul for the water of life.... FH 248.7

Forgetting the errand that had brought her to the well, the woman left her water pot and went into the city, saying to all whom she met, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” ... FH 248.8

Earth's cisterns will often be emptied, its pools become dry; but in Christ there is a living spring from which we may continually draw.... There is no danger of exhausting the supply; for Christ is the inexhaustible well-spring of truth. He has been the fountain of living water ever since the fall of Adam. He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” And “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.”—Signs of the Times, April 22, 1897. FH 248.9