March 12

Earthly Joys

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. — John 4:13 BSB

Just like Jacob’s well, all the joys of this world offer only temporary satisfaction. People drink from them and find some enjoyment for a while, but soon they are thirsty again. The human soul cannot be satisfied by anything from this world. This isn’t because the things of this world are bad—many of them are good and beautiful in their own way—but the soul is spiritual and eternal, and it can only be satisfied by something spiritual and eternal.

Money, fame, and power can never fill a soul made in the image of God. Nothing less than God Himself can meet its deepest needs. You couldn’t make angels happy by giving them gold, diamonds, or fancy clothes, and you can’t satisfy a human soul with those things either. People try, but the satisfaction is always short-lived, and soon the thirst returns. In fact, satisfying the desire only makes it stronger.

There’s a plant in South America that behaves in a similar way. It finds a damp place and sends down roots, and for a while, it stays green. But when the place dries up, the plant pulls up its roots and rolls itself up, letting the wind carry it to another moist spot, where it repeats the same process. It keeps moving from place to place until, at the end of its life, it’s nothing but a bundle of dried-up roots and leaves. The same thing happens to those who drink only from the springs of this world. They move from one source of satisfaction to another, driven by desires, and in the end, their souls are left empty and dry. We need something better than this to survive, or we will be lost forever.