The Gap Between Understanding and Trust | John 4:11-15

“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? 12 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, 14 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.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” (John 4:11-15 NIV)

There is a gap between understanding and trust which many of us fail to cross. We may come to understand what Jesus says, or we can imagine it changing our lives. But without trust we simply will not desire nor pursue that change.

Imagine reading a story of space travel, of landing on a habitable planet and creating a new life of peace and purpose. The story ends, the reader sighs and says, “That would be nice.” And then the reader turns back to mowing the lawn, or debating a law, or repairing a car, or cheating a neighbor or coasting into intoxication and addiction. The story remains only a pleasant image, without any desire to pursue the opportunity.

The woman could easily have mistrusted Jesus, considering him an interesting storyteller, but not for a minute thinking he had any real ability of providing her with water that would forever quench her thirst.

But the woman trusted Jesus. She expressed that trust in the form of desire: “Give me water that forever will satisfy me!”

Photo by Milt Reynolds, Crooked River Gorge, Idaho, December 2010