Go to the Well – Part One
Are you feeling empty and unfulfilled inside? Does your spirit feel dry? In this 2-part series, Jane Hansen Hoyt guides us away from "self" and urges us to "Go to the Well" and drink from the Water that will slacken our thirst.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
While certain earthly pleasures may satisfy some feelings of emptiness, they do not guarantee satisfaction forever. We will only continue to feel depleted and empty, unless we instead turn to Jesus and ask Him to fill & satisfy us.
- What are some things you turn to in attempt to satisfy different desires?
- What steps do you need to take in surrendering earthly satisfactions, and instead asking the Holy Spirit to fill certain voids?
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Greetings to you today. That sounds so formal, doesn't it? I could just say, “hi, good to see you again”. We've just come from a wonderful staff gathering, where the presence of the Lord was so real and so precious and we sang an old hymn, and i won't remember all of the words, but you'll recognize it. When I say to you that one of the phrases was “o for grace to trust you more”. We're living in a time, it's not just about seasons or times, but opportunities. We all have opportunities to realize that we need grace to trust him more. We find ourselves in situations that causes something to rise in us that we know is not the Holy Spirit. It’s a reaction - it's anger, it's hurt. We have been vulnerable or we've given of ourselves or we've, and without speaking the words, we recognize we expect something back. But Jesus has encouraged us to give of ourselves and give of him through us freely to others. That means that we should put our expectations on the altar and become free of flesh. And that's a work of the Spirit to become free of flesh - that always looks for a response back, that affirms us, that fills up the void, that fills the cup that's only half full. It's something you're needing, you think, from others. People that you love, people that maybe you're giving your life for, and yet in a particular moment, it feels as though the void is not being filled.
What you're wanting isn’t, how would I say it, some things you feel are rightfully yours just, by nature of friendship or marriage, or you think. And it all comes back that that should be working here, that's my right, that's my “well why can't she do that” or “why can't he”, just it all spins out. Here for what I want, what I need, what I think will fulfill me, what I think is rightfully mine, and it seems as though it's withheld from you. Until your eyes are open to see there's something greater that I’m after in you, let go of that. It doesn't matter. Come into a place, a relationship with me, that will slacken your thirst in a way, as it says in the book of John, he said to the woman at the well, “I have water to give you and you'll never thirst again”. Imagine that. You'll never thirst again. That's what he's after in us. In the spirit realm, to slacken that thirst that drives us - for food, for people, relationships, words, affirmation, whatever. He's saying, “but I have water to give you” that it will satisfy that thirst in a way that it's never been satisfied before, and you'll never thirst again because you'll know the well's there. Go to the well and get the water that causes that thirst to be satisfied.
