ODJ: eat, pray, love
July 9, 2011
The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could He possibly be the Messiah?” (vv.28-29).
READ: John 4:1-30
Spiritual memoirs are enjoying renewed popularity, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love has been the latest success story. A chronicle of her midlife crisis and quest for fulfillment, the book and subsequent movie captures her journey to Italy for food, India for spiritual enlightenment, and Bali for romance.
Critics have labeled Eat, Pray, Love narcissistic and shallow. Gilbert has an illicit affair, she embraces an “all-roads-lead-to-God” approach to religion, and her spirituality becomes somewhat self-focused. Still, millions have devoured her book. Its popularity reveals a worldwide spiritual thirst.
Another woman comes to mind as I contemplate this phenomenon. Her need was for water rather than exotic food, and she walked a half-mile to a distant well to get it. “If you only knew the gift God has for you and whom you are speaking to,” a Man had said to her there, “you would ask Me, and I would give you living water” (John 4:10).
Her search for love had been long and complex. “Go and get your husband,” the Man had said, before accurately disclosing that she wasn’t married to the man she was living with and that her past was checkered with many different husbands (vv.16-18).
As for prayer, the woman’s people had a sullied spiritual history (2 Kings 17:29), so her knowledge of God was flawed (John 4:20-22). But she knew the coming Messiah would clarify everything. “I am the
Messiah!” Jesus told her (v.26).
For this woman, something more was needed than food, sexual love, or vague spirituality. She found that “something more” in Jesus. Soon her story was bringing other spiritually hungry people to Him (vv.39-42). I hope Elizabeth Gilbert will one day have a similar story to tell. —Sheridan Voysey
Why do you think books like Eat, Pray, Love are so popular? How has Jesus, the living water, quenched your spiritual thirst?
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