The Well That Kept Running Dry

In 2018, Maria Santos walked into a community center in Tucson, Arizona, carrying two gallons of water she'd hauled from a distribution point six blocks away. The pipes in her neighborhood had been contaminated for months. Every morning, the same exhausting routine — walk, wait in line, carry the heavy jugs home, ration every drop, and wake up thirsty again.

Then a nonprofit called Water for Tucson showed up unannounced. They didn't just hand out bottles. They dug a clean well right in the community center parking lot. Maria remembers standing there watching the water rise, clear and cold, and weeping. "I didn't have to go back to that line anymore," she told a reporter. "The water came to me."

That is exactly what Jesus did at Jacob's Well. He found a Samaritan woman making her daily trek to draw water — a woman who had searched for satisfaction in five marriages and still came up empty. She kept returning to wells that ran dry. But Jesus offered her something she hadn't dared imagine: a spring welling up from the inside, water so alive it would never need replenishing.

The Almighty doesn't wait for us to haul ourselves to Him one more exhausting time. He meets us at our ordinary routine, in our dusty and depleted places, and says what He said to her: "I have water you haven't even thought to ask for yet."