Are You Thirsting for Love?

Looking for love in all the wrong places?

Most of us are tired with our search for love. Our search have become a vicious cycle of disappointment and falling out of one relationship to the next. Still we seek and believe that we will find a love that will completely satisfy us. Something inside us tells us that the unconditional love we are looking for exist, even if the evidence says otherwise.

“Jesus came to the Samaritan Town of Sychar … Jacob’s well was there and Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me to drink… How can you ask me for a drink? for Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans.”” - Jn 4: 1-30

This Gospel tells of a Samaritan woman who goes everyday to get water from the well. On this particular day, she finds Jesus arriving at the well before her.

Many of us feel like the Samaritan. We cannot seem to find a love that satisfies. Everyday the woman goes to the well to quench her thirst, but then gets thirsty again. Like us, we jump from one relationship to the next in search of love. Yet it leaves us still thirsty for love at the end of the day. Many of us are weary from hopping from one person to the next. There are others who have totally given up hope of finding this kind of satisfying love.

In our search for love in all the wrong places, Jesus has been waiting for us. Jesus, who is love made flesh, knows that He alone can give the satisfying love we are looking for.

Unfortunately many of us doubt that Jesus can satisfy us or doubt because of our unworthiness. Like the Samaritan woman we voice our doubts to Jesus, “How can you ask me for a drink? …for Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans.” Samaritans were considered unclean during those times. We share the same unbelief the Samaritan woman was experiencing. Is Jesus taking to me, a sinner? Does Jesus wants an intimate relationship with an unclean person?

Jesus replied to her, ‘If you but 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.’

Jesus wants us to experience His unconditional love but we must first meet Him. We must first encounter him in prayer. And when we encounter Jesus, He will say to us, “Give me your heart.” He wants the heart which we have given to so many empty things, except to Him. Jesus can never fill our hearts with His love if we do not give it to Him.

“He would have given you living water.”

On of the most famous line in the Christian world is what St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord”