Have you ever felt spiritually dehydrated?

Perhaps, like me, you’re in a season that makes focusing during sermons and Bible studies tricky?

Perhaps you too have been in a wilderness, unsure of the way towards nourishment and refreshment?

Maybe your soul feels weary and dry from a long hard year, and you’re not even sure if you can dare to hope for change in the New Year…

I get it.

In the same breath, I have also learned that we cannot wait for the ideal situation to fall neatly into place to then worship the Lord.

Recently, I had an intense week with three job interviews with three very different employers. After the first meeting, I felt confused. God hadn’t given me clarity yet and all I could do was try to have open hands as I went through the interview processes, and listen for the prompting of the Holy Spirit. What He prompted me to do in that moment, however, was entirely unexpected.

He asked me to worship.

There wasn’t an audible voice, but I could sense His whisper in my spirit.

His invitation.

The more I wrestled with the idea the more restless I felt. I needed to do something.

As it turns out, I needed to worship.

I knew I needed more than the car stereo to get through the layers of fear and insecurity threatening to keep me in a cocoon of confusion. I knew I needed to break free. So, I contacted our pastor to make sure the church building was open and available – more specifically, the piano. Then I drove straight there, sat myself on that piano stool, and sang. My fingers were out of practice, but it didn’t matter. Not to God. I sang until my throat felt dry. I sang until my voice turned raspy. For three hours, I sang until my heart felt right.

In the gospel of John, we read the account of another woman who was thirsty for worship.

Not only was the Samaritan woman physically thirsty, but Jesus recognizes her need for more. For Him. For Living Water. What I especially love about the account of the Samaritan woman is that God has already been doing a work in her heart leading up to this moment. How else would she (upon calling Jesus a Prophet) immediately ask where she should worship?

This point of contention is significant. One commentary remarks that in this situation it is in fact the most pressing theological question. See, the place of worship was a source of enmity between Samaritans and the Jews, as historical accounts describe a sort of competition between the Samaritan’s shrine and the temple of Jerusalem. Before Jesus’s time on earth, this shrine was destroyed by the Jews, thus destroying where the Samaritans believed they could worship.

The Samaritan woman – understood to have been named Photini – was thirsty for more than mere water. She had a thirst for worship. Her question had no doubt been ruminating for some time, just waiting for someone who could answer it.

And what a beautiful answer she receives…

“But a time is coming and is already here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit [from the heart, the inner self] and in truth; for the Father seeks such people to be His worshipers.”
John 4:23 AMP

And once Jesus satisfies her parched soul with the truth, Photini becomes the first female evangelist. She echoes the words of Jesus and Philip from John chapter one when she invites others to “Come and see…”

Her thirst was quenched with the Living Water only Jesus could provide.

Like Photini, I too experience this insatiable thirst for worship. And like this woman, God doesn’t wait for me to have it all together before He quenches it. In fact, that is often when He does some of His finest work – bringing peace in our storms.

Even in our uncertainty, He wants us to worship. Perhaps, especially in the uncertainty. To praise Him in the storm. To trust that He is the Living Water who alone can satisfy our thirsty souls.