The Water Crisis

A few weeks ago, we began to see blue stains on the shower floor. My dad began having increased back pain. We had two plumbers out to our house, but they told us two different things. Soon we started to wonder if something was wrong with our water.

My mom and I decided to visit Lowe’s. After looking around a bit, we found a water testing kit we took home to do ourselves.

As it turned out, what we had grown to suspect was true: We had too much copper in our water. As we learned later, an excess of copper can cause blue stains and stomach pains—exactly what we were experiencing.

Later that week, someone came to fix our acid neutralizer, and I cannot believe how good the water tastes! For the past several months, I thought the problem was my water bottle, which I ended up finally throwing away. It was the water all along.

This reminded me of how it doesn’t matter how much water we are drinking if we are not drinking good water. We thought the answer to our stomach aches was to drink more water, when it was the same old bad water. What we learned is that more water does not help; what we needed was pure water. We did not even recognize how contaminated our water was until we tasted something new.

God used this situation to remind me how I don’t even know what I am missing until I realize there is a better way: depending on and drawing from Christ. His well is never empty. The answer is not trying to do more in my own strength or drinking from my cistern (Jer. 2:13) but relying on His resources.

According to the John 4 account, which records Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, what He promises is comparable not to a leaky faucet but a vigorous spring: “But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn. 4:14).

We cannot understand the depths from which this promised “living water” flows. In the words of Oswald Chambers, from a finite standpoint, “Jesus has nothing to draw with.” We see Him as lacking, having nothing, insufficient to meet our needs. Yet His well amply quenches spiritual thirst.

To quote Matthew Henry, “the fountain of life is hid with Christ [who] has enough for us, though we see not whence he has it.” We’re not sure how, but we know He has enough. His ways higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His well is deeper than our well. And we know it’s the right kind of water.