Devotionals by Jill Briscoe

“For you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.” - John 4:18

Jesus had a heart for women. The disciples were astonished to find him speaking with a woman, especially a woman of the despised Samaritans—a woman who had had five husbands and who was living with a sixth man at the time she talked with Jesus! Yet Jesus saw her need. She thirsted for relationships to fill her empty life. “Wouldn’t you like to have that thirst quenched?” Jesus inquired.

We would do well to ask all thirsty women the same question. With broken marriages behind them, many women are searching for their identity, their happiness in a meaningful union. But you can’t quench spiritual thirst with a marriage—however meaningful it may be! “God is Spirit,” Jesus reminded the woman of Samaria (John 4:24). His Spirit is like living water and quenches our thirst. “Please, sir,” said the woman, “give me some of that water” (John 4:15).

Today we can ask him to do that for us, too. We can simply say, “Jesus, I need you; Jesus, I want you; give me this water.” We will need to leave our sinful lives behind us as the Samaritan woman left her bucket, but then, like the woman at the well, we’ll never thirst again.

Jesus, I thirst—
Quench me;
Jesus, I hunger—
Feed me;
Jesus, I’ll tell—
Send me.

For Further Study: John 4

Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.

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