Jacob’s Well of Lasting Fulfillment

While Jennifer and I were editing my last post she asked me to explain a statement I made. She asked why I made a distinction between lasting fulfillment and living satisfaction. It was a cool thing to be asked, to have to explain my words, because I didn’t realize they meant something different to me.  Having to think it through and verbalize it gave me the opportunity to expound.  Thank you, Jennifer!

My statement in the post was: I want to reveal the meaning of life that will give you eternal joy, deepest satisfaction, and just possibly cure most of what “ails ya.” It’s the true secret of lasting fulfillment and it’s the only way to experience a living satisfaction.

So I would like to tell you what I told Jennifer.  Lasting fulfillment is like knowing I always have a source of clean water available to me – that I can go and drink and quench my thirst whenever I am thirsty.  Fulfillment means, in my context, that I have a source to fill my need. Living satisfaction, on the other hand, is something quite different.  It means I am living in satisfaction, that my need is met and I am resting in the reality of that.  One is a position of having to retrieve from a source, while the other is living in the Source.

Jacob’s Well of Lasting Fulfillment

I immediately thought of the Samaritan woman.  She epitomizes what I am trying to say.

Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask Me, and I would give you living water.” “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water?  And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?” Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.  But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”
John 4:7-15 NLT

You see, she had a source of lasting fulfillment in the waters of Jacob’s well.  All she had to do was draw from it.  But Jesus was telling her that she could have a living satisfaction, and she grasped completely what He was saying. Her response was, “Give me this water! (of living satisfaction) Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and won’t have to come here to get water (of lasting fulfillment).”

In lasting fulfillment, there is still a work to do; living satisfaction is entering the rest.  So in the posts to follow, I want to discuss our living satisfaction.