Bread for the Journey

A reader once left a comment asking why we have so many posts called Bread for the Journey when there is nothing about bread in there. In my response I explained these posts as giving reference to a spiritual hunger for bread that feeds our souls.

It reminded me of a Bible story in John 4.

The setting is in Samaria, a town called Sychar.

Jesus, weary from travel, sat down by the community well. Soon a woman from the area came to draw water and Jesus asked her to for a drink. The woman’s initial response was a bewildered question as to why this Jewish man would ask a Samaritan woman for water, since they had nothing in common. Jesus said to 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.”

The woman, seeing that Jesus had nothing to draw water with wondered where or how He planned to get this living water. Jesus explained to her that everyone who drinks the water from this particular well, will be thirsty again, but that those who take the water that he offers, will never be thirsty again.

“Indeed, the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water,

welling up to eternal life.”

Obviously this kind of water sounded good to the woman and in further conversation she learned that Jesus knew a whole lot more about her past than she would have wanted to let on . . . but, surprisingly, it freed her up to believe. Any man who knew her past and still offered her spiritual water for life, had to be the Savior they were waiting for.

Lord God, I thank you for the way you quench the thirst in our soul. I pray You will bless each reader here today with refreshing water from Your well of forgiveness, love and hope for eternity.