How to Be Grateful Even When You Long for More

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.” John 4:13-14 

Longing for More

When life hums along, when days become laced with sameness, it’s a privilege. When we are privileged to live in well-ordered times, we have more time to wonder, more space to dream, and we can begin to long.

I longed for a new career when I was in my 30s. Unfortunately, going back to my former career as a television news reporter/anchor would not fit my life as a military spouse who moved frequently and as a mother of two medically complex children.

Meanwhile, I saw writer friends of mine online whose platforms exploded and who landed book deals—while my online spaces grew slowly and a book deal was a distant dream. I was grateful for my children’s improving health, grateful that in these hard toddler years, I had a partner I adored. I was grateful and I was longing.

The Woman at the Well

There’s an encounter Jesus has in the Bible commonly referred to as “The Woman at the Well.” Maybe you were taught the woman at the well was an adulteress or even a prostitute due to her marriage history, but we don’t know this woman’s whole story. Ultimately, we know that in one way or another, she suffered.

This woman was marginalized by the larger society; men rarely spoke to women in public, and this woman was an outcast because she was a Samaritan. Jews did not like Samaritans because they were an ethnic group descended from intermarriages between Jews and Assyrians, which went against Jewish law. She was also perhaps even outcast by her husbands and her own people. It was this woman with whom Jesus decided to have the longest theological conversation recorded in the Bible. It was this woman to whom He revealed His true identity for the first time.

The First Evangelist

Whereas most Jews would take the long way around Samaria when traveling, Jesus went right through it. He had to, according to John 4:4. Just a chapter earlier, we learn that God so loved the world—and we learn why Jesus came. Here we see that He came for the oppressed Samaritan woman. He came for us all. Jesus revealed to her who she was and in doing so revealed who we are too: We are people who experience heartache and pain, who know this world cannot be all there is; we are people who long for something different. Jesus revealed her identity to reveal His own. He is the only One who can fulfill the longings of our hearts—both the ones we can name and the ones we don’t have language for.

The woman couldn’t contain herself. He knew her. He knew them all. She had to go tell everyone she knew. The wait was over.

Jesus turned this woman who intimately knew pain into the first evangelist. This was her redemption. This is our redemption too.

She spread the word of Jesus’ identity. In doing so, she drank from the well of living water. In our doing so, God teaches us how to fulfill that emptiness we feel that has us wanting more. It’s never found in a thing. Our deepest longings can only be satisfied by the One who breaks through barriers to find us, who loves us just as we are, and who calls us into good purposes.

In His Word

Read Psalm 33.

This passage speaks directly to the tension between longing and contentment. The wait isn’t easy. Choose to anchor your hope in who God is rather than in what you don’t have.

In Your Life

Write out your current longings. Try to filter them through a Jesus-­filled strainer. Are there things that bring you closer to His ways of love and mercy? If so, write a second list of those longings, only. Mentally contrast where you want to be versus where you are now so you can begin to create a roadmap.

We Recommend