Did you know that Jesus personally addressed the issue of the emptiness of the human heart?
Let me explain in detail that phenomenon that you are feeling, or that you and I once felt in the past.
Having an empty, thirsty heart.
That impossibility of finding joy and full meaning in everyday life.
I don’t know about you, but I personally love stories of people’s encounters with Jesus.
When you analyze them with spiritual eyes, they have incredibly exciting and interesting details.
One of my favorite stories of encounters in the Bible is this: The Encounter Between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman.
Let’s read a little of that story together to answer the question of the day:
(…) Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well (…)
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (…)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
(For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you 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 answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but 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.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water (…)”
| John 4:6-10; 13-15
Jesus says only in this little fragment extremely important and transcendental things for your life and mine.
Stay a little longer because I promise you’ll be surprised.
Before we delve into all of them to learn how to fill the emptiness of the heart, I want us to focus on one thing Jesus said in particular:
Everyone who drinks from this water will thirst again.
Perhaps you are saying as I once did, “It is obvious, Lord that he who drinks water is thirsty again.
It’s a natural thing in humans, it’s called “dehydration” and more so if you’re in a desert-like area as the lady of history was.”
Well, you should know that Jesus wasn’t just talking about H₂O when he said that to the woman.
That’s right.
Jesus often used real-world metaphors to uncover the most beautiful spiritual secrets in the universe.
The Lord wasn’t really talking about H₂O, how one at first glance might think.
He was saying something much deeper that can be understood with perfect clarity in the response he gives to the woman when she tells him the following:
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water (…)
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.
The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
| John 4:15-19
That was the water Jesus was referring to when he said that when you drink him, you become thirsty again.
That was the water Jesus was talking about!
Did you get it?
No?
Don’t worry, I didn’t understand it the first time when I read this passage many, many times.
However, what he says here is so important to fill the emptiness of the heart that I will explain it to you.
What the Lord is saying here to the woman is, “Bring me the water you have been drinking from.”
For the Lord knew the heart of that woman, as much as he knows your heart and mine, as he knows all hearts.
He knew that that woman had been trying to fill the emptiness of her heart with the attentions, sins, and mistakes of this world.
She had been drinking from the wrong waters.
Sounds familiar?
She had been trying to fill the void of her heart with the attention, affection and passion she found in men.
And Jesus confronts her with that reality before giving her to drink the water she asked for.
To this, the woman’s response is “Lord, I realize that you are a prophet” i.e., “Lord, you have told me the truth, how did you know?”
Now, this is important because like the woman, if you and I want to fill the emptiness of our hearts, we first have to face identifying and recognizing what we’ve been trying to fill it with.
Maybe you’ve been trying to fill that empty heart with fleeting entertaining.
Maybe you’ve tried to forget that void with alcohol or drugs, maybe you’ve tried to fill it with the ephemeral affection of people who have abandoned you.
Perhaps you know more beds than a professional maid with thirty-five years of experience in chain hotels.
I don’t know how you’ve tried to fill it, but you and Jesus do.
Today He tells you, bring to me the water you’ve been drinking because I’m going to change it for a much better one because,
Everyone who drinks from this water will thirst again,” (…) “but he who drinks from the water that I will give him will never thirst again, but within him that water will become a spring from which eternal life will sprout.
You know, there’s only one way to fill the emptiness in your heart, the way that’s done is by letting Jesus into it.
If you really want to stop living the unhappy, empty, and wretched life you’ve been living; there is only one who can fill it.
His name is Jesus.
These are things that although I would like to, I cannot explain to you in such a way that you can understand them as much as I understand them, because these are things that are lived in the spirit.
These are things that are experienced in the heart.
You need to experience them for yourself.
Today, I can tell you that my heart is no longer empty, as it once was.
On the contrary, my heart is now a wellspring of joy, of purpose from which eternal life springs.
My life and my existence now make total sense.
My being is full and my soul satisfied.
When you drink from the waters of eternal life, you are completely satisfied.
You no longer need to hurt yourself by drinking trash, and your experience will be such that you will not change Jesus for anything on this earth.
Because only he can satisfy your soul.
Say to the Lord with me today in this prayer: Lord, I have drunk from the waters of this world for a long time.
You know better than anyone how empty my heart is.
I ask you to enter into it at this hour, that your Holy Spirit begin to make my heart your permanent room and that you teach me to be closer to you every day.
What is your experience? Do you experience an emptying in your heart? Share it in the comments.
