It’s easy to take water for granted. 

My family and I realized this during our very first backpacking trip. The first half of the 22-mile trail was up on a bluff—nowhere near water. After hours in the sweltering sun, all our water bottles were empty. Boy were we hot and thirsty!

When we finally made it to Eddington Creek—a sandy-bottomed, fast-moving stream about 8 miles from the trailhead—we cheered! The kids and dogs splashed into the crisp river, and we dropped to our knees and drank right from the stream before filtering water into our bottles.

It brought to mind a familiar Bible passage: “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

Imagine never being thirsty again! It’s hard to imagine how much that matters if you’ve never been DESPERATELY thirsty. Most of us don’t have to worry about thirst in this day and age.

But God promises to assuage an inner thirst … an innate desire for something MORE. Something necessary. Something soul-saving … through his Son, Jesus Christ. Maybe we don’t know how much we need that because we’ve known him our whole lives and have taken him for granted. Or maybe we’ve recently reencountered this Savior named Jesus. 

Either way, Christ is the necessary water that offers eternal life, and we will never thirst again!