Living water

I really dislike same-ness. I get easily sick of things – a piece of music or a song, the same food, routine, spending time with the same people, a story that’s already been told several times. I don’t know if it’s because I remember things, especially details, or a result of my innate curiosity – that push to seek out new experiences. But I just can’t stand overdone routine or repetition. My favourite song for ages as a teenager was “Everything I Do” by Bryan Adams, but instead of listening to it over and over (unlike my little brother, who would watch “Aladdin”, then put it back in and watch it again straight away, and then again…), I actually stopped myself from listening to it too much, or even being in danger of hearing it too often; it had to be a treat, because I liked it so much I was afraid of getting tired of it. The less I heard it, the more likely it was to keep being my favourite song. It lasted a long time! I love mangoes and yearn for mango season every year; but I’m also glad that they’re only available for a few months, or I might – oh horror – get sick of them.

There’s only one thing that doesn’t have that effect on me. The Gospel is the only thing that I’m never sick of, that holds constant interest and renewal for me. It gives me enough. Not ‘enough’ in that it makes me sit there and be content in a little, but ‘enough’ because I don’t know its end; because it’s eternal and expansive, yet sufficient. I feel both content and curious about it – but I know that my curiosity will be sated, whatever it is that I seek. It is enough in a way that nothing else in my life, in this world, is. It truly satisfies my soul. I get tired of beautiful places that move me and of favourite books – but never of Christ and His living water. His promise to the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob is true:

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John 3:13-14).

Elder Uchtdorf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently said this about the satisfying nature of the Gospel:

The gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses not only the truth of what was and what is but the truth of what can and will be. It is the most practical of all truths. It teaches the way of the disciple—a path that can take ordinary, flawed mortals and transform them into glorious, immortal, and limitless beings whose divine potential is beyond our meager capacity to imagine.
Now, that is practical truth. It is priceless beyond imagination. It is truth of the highest order. The pursuit, discovery, and application of truth are what we are on this earth to discover. The gospel of Jesus Christ not only encompasses all truth, but it specializes in the knowledge that will be of greatest worth to us in this life and throughout the eternities to come.
In the words of Orson F. Whitney, an early Apostle of the Church, the gospel “embraces all truth, whether known or unknown. It incorporates all intelligence, both past and prospective. No righteous principle will ever be revealed, no truth can possibly be discovered, either in time or in eternity, that does not in some manner, directly or indirectly, pertain to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” (Seeing Beyond the Leaf, BYU Church History Symposium, March 2014).

God sent manna to the Israelites during their forty years of wilderness-wandering; they always had exactly the right amount for their needs – no more and no less. Any attempt to take more than they needed resulted in its loss; if they gathered only a small amount, it ended up being enough. This was a sign to point them (and us) to Christ, who is the embodiment of life. In Him is the rest we seek, the nourishment our souls need, and the eternal life we yearn for. Without Him is nothing; with Him is everything. So many scriptures testify of this – Ether 12:27; John 6; John 1:1-16; John 15; Isaiah 58:8-11; Isaiah 60:19-20; 2 Nephi 31:19; 2 Nephi 9:50-51. In contrast, Babylon teaches over-consumption, endless doors to open with endless delights behind them, and insatiable desires. It speaks of measures that will temporarily satisfy those desires, which when consumed leave you wanting for more. It offers lifeless water, water that increases thirst and can never quench it – like drinking Coke on a hot day.

The apparent paradox of living water and bread that never runs out is not a paradox at all. We came from God, who gave us life, and only His food will ever satisfy our eternal souls. He who made us knows what we need to feel alive and to thrive forever. Anything else, any other way, any other philosophy is like those promises of Babylon – enticing but ultimately un-satisfying; synthetic imitations of the real thing.