Living Water

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Turning from Empty Wells"

"Thirst and Satisfaction"

"Thirst and Satisfaction"

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Dannah Gresh: Let’s talk plants! I am the proud owner of a fiddle leaf fig that’s been thriving in my home since 2019! That mini tree is strong and green. I think it’s time to name him . . . and I’m taking suggestions! But then, there’s the poor peace lily. It can thank my husband that it’s still alive. I often see him carrying a pitcher of water its direction mumbling something about if he didn’t notice the wilting leaves it’d surely be gone.

How does he know it needs water? I mean, Bob will be the first to tell you he’s not the most observant human on the planet! Well, peace lilies are one of the few house plants that sort of have a signal that screams: “I’m dying! Gimme water! They wilt. And they’re pretty much drama queens about it! (If you don’t have much of a green thumb, this is a good thing. You might get a peace lilly!)

Water is, of course, essential to life . . . not just for plants. Our bodies need water. And our souls need it too. Is your soul wilting? I’ve got something better than my husband's pitcher of water for you, my friend. Living water is on the way!

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh. Today we’ll hear from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Gretchen Saffles, and Janet Parshall.

Let’s start by looking at the problem. All of us experience a wilted soul from time to time. You’re not alone. Gretchen Saffles is the author of The Well-Watered Woman. Not too long ago, Nancy and I had a chance to talk to Gretchen who helped us identify why sometimes we feel so spiritually dry.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I think most of us want to be those flourishing women. We don’t want to be wilted, dry plants that look like nobody has ever taken care of them or paid any attention to them. We want to be flourishing. We want to be growing. We want to have good soil and good roots.

I know you and Dannah are both green thumbs. You’re into gardening. You’re not the green thumb—Dannah is. Is that right?

Gretchen Saffles: I have a somewhat green thumb. It’s a gray thumb. It’s not black. It’s not green. It’s in the middle.

Nancy: We want to be these flourishing women. I know both you and Dannah are into gardening, so you see a lot of illustrations of this. But something happens that keeps us from being where we want to be.

Scripture talks about how we can turn to some sources that we think will make us flourish, but they actually end up leaving us dry and wilted.

Gretchen: Yes. And this is something we see happen over and over with the Israelites in the Old Testament. We see them wandering away from God to worthless idols, to the things of this world that won’t satisfy them. God is so gracious to always call them out from their wandering back to His heart. He does the same to us.

We see this unfold in Jeremiah chapter 2. The Israelites were actually in Babylon. They were in exile because they had wandered away from the ways of God. They were prone to wander just like we are prone to wander as well. And in Jeremiah 2, verse 13, God says to the people:

“For my people have committed two evils:they have forsaken me,the fountain of living waters,and hewed out cisterns for themselves,broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Nancy: Okay. Hold on. Before we go any further . . .

Gretchen: Yes?

Nancy: We’re not talking about brothers and sisters here. It’s not that word. It’s cisterns.

Gretchen: Yes.

Nancy: What are these cisterns? Because we’re not used to using that word.

Gretchen: Absolutely.

In the Bible—especially in the Old Testament—you’re going to see wells were often a meeting place, a place even where God did a lot of amazing things in the lives of His people. Wells, like cisterns, were holding places for water for the people. They couldn’t just go and turn on the tap like we can do. They actually had to go somewhere to get this water.

But the thing that Jeremiah notes here is that they were going to broken cisterns, which meant that they were going to a place that would have had dirty water, not clean water.

Living water, what God refers to here, would be referred to as fresh water, water that is moving, that is alive. The good water that the people wanted to drink.

Nancy: And this would have been a word picture that the Israelites really got. 

Gretchen: Absolutely!

Nancy: The land there is arid. It’s a dry climate, so they would have these cisterns. These are holding places for water. It might be dug out of a mountain or dug out of a rock. And if that earth were caked, if the pottery that was supposed to hold water, if it was cracked and broken, it couldn’t hold water, and the people would die of thirst.

And so you say, “Well, my people have made broken cisterns.” What does that mean?

God says this is a great evil. So it’s something that He wanted them to understand that they were going to places they thought would provide satisfaction and flourishing for them—these idols, this immorality. But, in fact, it was leaving them with dirty, useless water. Those cisterns were useless because they couldn’t get the clean water they needed to survive.

Dannah: Yes.

Gretchen: Absolutely. They couldn’t provide for them what they were really looking for.

I used to have a mug that my husband and I made. We went to a pottery place to make it. So it meant a lot to me. I made this mug with my own hands. And yet, over the years, it cracked. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. I would keep it. And sometimes I would forget this is a cracked mug, and I’d pull it out, put something in it, and it would start to leak.

It was just like these broken cisterns that they kept running to, thinking, This idol is going to satisfy me. If I do this, if I get this, it will satisfy me, when, really, they’re left with nothing. They’re left empty-handed, just like I was with my broken mug that would not give me a drink of water.

Instead, God was calling them, “Come to Me. I am the Fountain of Living Water.”

Dannah: Yes. So let’s fast-forward to the year 2021. We don’t have cisterns or idols that we bow down to. What are those broken cisterns that we go to? What do they look like in our lives?

Gretchen: What’s interesting to me is they look like the things that are around us. We often overlook the little phone that’s probably right next to you. It could be in our pocket. You’re probably listening to the podcast right here on your phone. That is one of the idols that we bow down to, one of the broken cisterns that we run to in our moment of need.

Nancy: So it’s not things that are apparently evil.

Gretchen: Right.

Nancy: But we’re looking to it to do something for our souls that it can’t do. That’s why it’s a broken cistern. Right?

Gretchen: Absolutely. I’ve found myself in moments where I am exhausted, and I need a word of hope. I need some encouragement. I pull out my phone. And instead of the opportunity to read God’s Word on my phone, to text a friend, to listen to worship music, I’ll find myself going down a rabbit hole on social media and comparing myself to so many different people.

Dannah: Gretchen Saffles pointed out one broken cistern we can look to for satisfaction: social media. I bet you can come up with others, too. By the way, Gretchen will lead a breakout session at our True Woman '25 conference this fall. I sure hope you’ll join us. For more information, check out TrueWoman25.com.

We’re talking about living water today. And by that, I mean the refreshing impact the presence of Jesus has in our hearts and minds! Think about Psalm 23. It talks about places the Shepherd takes His sheep—us. He makes us lie down in green pastures, and He leads us by still waters. He takes us to refreshing places. 

But He’s also with us as we go through the dark and dry places, where water is scarce. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says God has reasons—good reasons—for leading us there. 

Nancy: God uses the desert to show us His grace and His glory. God sends us into the desert to show us His grace and His glory.

In Exodus 16 when the children of Israel were in one of their deserts, Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “In the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord” (v. 7). Where were those words spoken? In the desert. That passage goes on to say,

And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. (v. 10)

We said earlier in this series that when you’re in the desert and you don’t have the competing lights of the city, you can see the stars at night. Now there are no fewer stars in the sky if you live in the city. But you can’t see them until you get into the dark place.

The children of Israel saw the glory of God in the dark nights of the desert in a way they didn’t see God’s glory when they had everything going well. They saw the glory and the grace of God.

Isaiah chapter 40, a real familiar passage: “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God’” (v. 3). God comes to meet with us in our deserts. And that passage goes on to say, “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (v. 5).

Not only will God reveal His glory to you in your desert, but others will see the glory of God. I want my life to be the kind of life that causes others to look and say, “What an incredible God!” If they don’t see me stretched and receiving God’s grace, if my life just looks easy and there are no problems and there are no challenges and there are no struggles, what’s going to make them think that God is great?

But when people see me walking through hardship or testing or trials or affliction or adversity or dry times and still saying, “Yet I will praise Him;” they see God manifesting Himself to me in those times; they see the glory and the grace of God reflected in my spirit, in my tone, in my words, and in my countenance, then not only do I see God’s glory, but they see the glory of God.

Isaiah 35: “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom . . . . They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God” (vv. 1–2). And that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about me. It’s not about my convenience, my comfort, my happiness, my ease. It’s about pointing people to Him.

You want to really see God? You want to really know God? You want to see God’s glory? God’s glory shines most brightly in the darkest nights. The children of Israel looked toward the wilderness. Don’t run from it; look toward it and behold the glory of the Lord here in the cloud.

There are aspects of God’s glory, His grace, and His provision that you will never experience apart from the desert.

As I was studying for this series I came across a passage I hadn’t read in some time, and it just ministered so beautifully to me. I love this. It’s in Deuteronomy 32 beginning in verse 10. And Moses is reminding the children of Israel how God had met their needs, how God had walked with them through these forty years of desert experiences.

And Moses says in Deuteronomy 32:10, “He found him,” speaking of Israel, “in a desert land and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him,” that is Yahweh God, encircled Israel His people, “he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye,” in the wilderness, in the desert.

Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him, no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field and he suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. (vv. 11–13)

What a precious experience to be able to look back as the children of Israel could in that howling wasteland of a wilderness and say God was like this mother eagle hovering over her eaglets caring for them, preparing them, protecting them, present when it seemed that He was not there. God was there lifting them up under His wings, guiding them, providing for them, giving them honey out of the rock, giving water and oil out of the rock.

You look back and you say, “God was there. God was good. God was faithful. There were aspects of God’s glory and His grace and His provision that I experienced in the desert that I couldn’t experience anywhere else.”

Then let me just share with you one other purpose of God for sending us into the desert at times. God sends us into the desert to get us to Jesus, to get us to Jesus.

As you look back in the Old Testament on God’s provision, think about what God provided: manna, bread from heaven, right on time, every day, just enough. He provided water where there was no water. Water out of a rock! You don’t get water out of rocks, but God sent water out of the rock.

God sent the rock, who the Scripture tells us is a picture of Christ: Jesus the Rock. God sent the cloud, the manifestation of His presence. All of those aspects of God’s provision for Israel in the desert were a picture of Christ. They were types of Christ—Christ who is the bread of life; He is manna from heaven. Christ who is the living water. Christ who is our Rock. Christ who appears to us in our darkness and in the cloud of His glory and His presence. They are types of Christ.

So God sends us into the desert so that we can get to Jesus, so that we can experience Him in a deeper and richer way than we experience apart from our deserts.

One of my friends writing to me about her desert, which has been a long, hard one, said, “In the desert I have found buried treasure. I have found the reward.” And you want to know what that reward is? She said, “It’s my Savior, my Lord, my Redeemer, and my hope.”

You want to really know Jesus? You want a taste of Him? You want to drink deeply of Him? You want to experience His covering, His protection, His provision, His presence, His peace, His power? You want to know Him—really know Him? Then when God sends you to the desert, don’t whine. Don’t resent. Don’t resist. Don’t run. But say, “Lord, I embrace this. Just get me to Jesus. Show me Jesus.”

Now there may be seasons of time when you don’t see Him, you don’t feel Him, you don’t sense Him. But I want to tell you, you’ll come out on the other side knowing Him in a more intimate and real and personal way than you ever dreamed possible.

Even when you can’t see Him and sense Him, He will be there. He will be the One providing for you. He will be the One meeting your needs. He will be there in your desert.

Dannah: I think we all need that reminder from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. There’s something in us that wants only the lush, green places. We naturally try to avoid the deserts of life, but sometimes God takes us through that sort of terrain intentionally. As Nancy just reminded us, He has wise purposes behind it. He wants be the sole source of your refreshing. He wants to be your Living Water! 

Janet Parshall spoke at a True Woman conference about the woman at the well. She was a woman who was desperately thirsty for Living Water. We read about her encounter with Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 4. Here’s Janet, from a past True Woman conference.

Janet Parshall: There she was, burdened with sin, hiding in shame, thirsty, unsatisfied. She goes back after her daily chores, dreams on hold, dreading the night to come. She has an encounter with the One who knows exactly who she is, and He loves her nonetheless.

She finds real intimacy in Jesus, for the first time in her life with this man, this Jew, the Messiah. He loves her like no one ever has. She was thirsty, and He offered her living water. And for the first time in her life, her thirst was quenched.

The conversation stops, the disciples show up. You can imagine they were rather dumbfounded. Whoa! He's alone at the well. It's a woman. It's a Samaritan. They're talking. You can imagine, but they knew they better be quiet and pay attention.

His students were watching an evangelist at work and His students were getting the message that the gospel is for all people in all times and in all places. And that was a profound message, the whole truth of the whole gospel to the whole world should be our clarion call in the time God has left for us.

The students were amazed, and the Bible says no one asked a question. That's because they were watching grace at work.

Then something wonderful happens. The woman runs back into town, leaving her water jars, makes a statement that resonates throughout the centuries. "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did" (v. 29).

Here she is, a woman getting water in the middle of the day, living in the shadows, and now she's running back to the very people she's been trying to avoid. She says, "I want to tell you about the one who has told me everything I've ever done."

Open, transparent, free, backpack of sin off, quenched thirst from living waters. And as a result of that, revival breaks out. Her repentance led to revival and later on in this passage, we read where Jesus says, "Look, the fields are white with harvest." Some Bible teachers think the Samaritans were known for wearing white robes. So the white with harvest meant there was a whole boatload of Samaritans coming out to see what she had said. The fields are white with harvest. Revival started with repentance, because she took the living waters from the One who sought her out. It doesn't get any better than that.

So they believed. You know what's amazing, as I wrap this up? This woman is never named. I love it when God does that. You know why? Because I think He's saying to us, "Will you step into that passage?"

Maybe you're that woman at the well. Oh, when I get to heaven, I've got a million questions for a million people, and after I spend a million years on my face before the Lord and I finally raise my head to see Him face-to-face, I'm going to say, "Could you point out the Samaritan woman to me?"

I would like to meet her. We don't know her name, and I think part of that is because God invites us in. Knowing our secret sins, knowing everything we have ever done, and He loves us just the same.

We think we are clever or effective in hiding guilt and shame, but in truth we are all very, very thirsty. We're barely existing, certainly not thriving, but we don't want someone to know. So we go about our daily tasks hoping no one will notice.

• We are thirsty physically, so we use food, alcohol to try to comfort us, only to leave us hungry for more.
• We're thirsty emotionally. We try relationship after relationship after relationship, only to be left parched.
• And we hunger spiritually, and so we use everything from Oprah to Buddhism to ritualism to try to fill a gap that only He can fill.

So ladies, this morning I want us to step into this story. I want us to let our parched lips be quenched by the living waters that He affords us.

I want you to remember the words of an old hymn that said:

One day I came to Him when I was so thirsty.
I asked for water, my throat was so dry.
He gave me water that I never dreamed of,
But for this water my Lord would die.

He said I thirst, and yet He made the rivers.
He said I thirst, and yet He made the sea.
He said I thirst, said the king of the ages,
In His great thirst He brought water to me.

Dannah: Wow, what a powerful reminder that Jesus, the One who gives us living water, was thirsty for us! That’s Janet Parshall, speaking at one of the True Woman conferences, hosted by Revive Our Hearts. 

How about you, my friend? Are you dry and thirsty? Have you been looking for satisfaction and not finding it? I’m here to tell you: there is living water, the kind that completely and permanently satisfies your thirst!

Turn to Jesus. For more information about what this means, can you do me a favor? Go to this web page, and read the whole thing. It’s ReviveOurHearts.com/GoodNews. That page explains the gospel and helps you start a personal relationship with Jesus, your Source of living water. Because of Him, you can experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness forever.

Want to help more women around the world experience the life-giving river of God? Contact us with your donation! We’d love to hear from you. You can do that by going to ReviveOurHearts.com/Donate. 

Thanks for listening today. Drink deeply, friend, of the water of life! I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time, for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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