Heritage

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 4:10-14

We are part of a multigenerational spiritual heritage and our story matters.

I spent January with a people who can trace their ancestors back 500 years. When asked, any child on the street can recite 30 generations of fathers.

Those same people count themselves as descendants of the prophet Mohammed, part of a religion that traces its lineage back to Abraham’s son Ishmael. Among them are many millions who, like the Samaritan woman, faithfully return day after day to the well of their fathers, drawing water that cannot satisfy.

Jesus does not despise the spiritual #heritage of the faithful. He goes out of His way, rather He intentionally makes it part of His way, to go to them and sit down by the wells of their fathers and wait. Share on X

Sometimes, like His disciples who were away, busy doing practical things, we leave Him to it.

We learn only later of the transformational conversations that took place between the Source of Living Water and the thirsty. We discover it when they knock on our door in the night to whisper a dream they had where He drew near. We hear about it when they burst into a room and ask us to explain the words of the Man who shone like the sun and told them He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

We learn only later.

Jesus does not dismiss the spiritual heritage of those who have been seeking God for generations, and neither must we. Instead, Jesus completes their journey, quenches the thirst of 30 generations, exposes what was hiding in the darkness, and brings the thirsty into His glorious, liberating light.

I want to witness that. No practical errands for me, please. Let me sit by the well with Him as He honors them by listening to their story. As He opens their eyes to Living Water that will spring up to eternal life.

There are other water-seekers who cannot trace their heritage beyond even one generation. Their ancestry is shrouded in shame or obscured by loss. But Jesus takes His seat by their well also and waits. He waits to tell them their lineage. An honorable lineage that traces back to the first Adam, through to the Messiah who gave His life to make them sons and daughters.

Jesus is the only one who can fulfill the spiritual longing of generations. He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

In the end, all who accept the Living Water He offers will become one family with one glorious spiritual heritage that can be traced back to the beginning of time.

And, when asked, we can joyfully recite all the generations of our Father’s great love for us.

Lord, meet my thirsty friends by the well and give them Living Water today. Amen.

@audreycfrank

Photo by Gary Meulemans on Unsplash