A Spring of Living Water
An article written by Mark Richards
The town of Chesham grew up along the river to which it later gave its name – the Chess.
The river naturally provided a plentiful supply of water for drinking and washing. People could live and farm here. Watermills were built whose remains can still be seen today. Various industries, like brush-making, sprang up next to the river. Watercress grew well alongside the river bed and for many years was picked and transported each day to London.
The town depended on the river, and even today it is a very attractive feature. From Chesham the Chess flows for some ten miles down through the beautiful Chess Valley until it empties into the river Colne at Rickmansworth. But how does the river arise? The river is sourced by several springs in the Chesham area. The main springs are along the Chesham Vale to the north of the town and along Pednor Vale to the west. For centuries, in sunshine and snow, pure water from the under-lying aquifer has bubbled up through them. There is something very beautiful and welcome about a spring of fresh water – especially if you’re thirsty! It’s so much better than drinking from a stagnant pool. As inhabitants of Chesham we can therefore easily understand what God means when he describes himself in the Bible as “a spring of living water”. God is saying that he himself is a pure and constant source of life and satisfaction. But in the Bible God also brings a charge, a grievance against the people of ancient Israel: “They have forsaken me the spring of living water, and have dug their own storage tanks, broken tanks that cannot hold water.” The Bible, Jeremiah 2:13
The people had turned away from God and instead were worshipping other things, things they’d made themselves. And yet these water tanks were cracked – the pleasures that they brought soon stagnated and drained away. Isn’t this still what we find today? When we turn away from God and centre our lives on our desire for more money, better homes, the finest food and drink, exotic holidays, sport, music or romance and sex, after a while the new found pleasures grow stale until perhaps they dry up altogether. We might try something else but it’s the same story again. To turn away from God our Maker and Sustainer is both wrong and pointless.
In the heat of a Middle-Eastern midday the Lord Jesus once told a woman by a well, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The Bible, John 4:13
This woman had been married five times and was now in another relationship. Jesus was not just commenting on the water from the well but on her lifestyle, going from one man to another. He was offering her a relationship of quite a different kind, a spiritual relationship with God. This would be pure and fresh and last forever. In the same passage Jesus speaks of this offer as a gift. It’s not something we can earn or buy but something which we need to receive freely, humbly and gladly from God.
Jesus came into this world and lived and died. On the cross he said, “I am thirsty.” The Bible teaches that through the agonies he suffered we can receive the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. Jesus himself rose from the dead and is alive today. He can cleanse us, detoxify us, and give us enduring satisfaction, joy and hope.
Those of us who are Christians are deeply thankful that through Jesus Christ we’ve come to know God. We agree with the words of one who wrote long ago: “Lord, you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.” Augustine, Confessions, Book 1, 1:1
The local springs may sometimes dry up but God is a never-failing fountain of life, peace and joy.