More than any other book in the New Testament, the gospel of John drives home the fact that our relationship with God should be a deeply satisfying one. Jesus repeatedly spoke of man’s hunger and thirst, promising they would be satisfied:

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 4:13-14 NIV

It begins here, with the Samaritan woman at her well. Jesus not only promised her a drink of water, he claimed his water would become in the one who drank, a spring of water. The original Greek evokes the idea of a spring-fed well that is gushing up profusely.

The promise that we would never thirst again is so startling that we dare not believe it, lest we be disappointed in Christ. But the greatest sin we can commit against God is to not believe him. The best day of my Christian life was when I decided to worry less about disappointment and just go for it — to simply and truly believe what Jesus said.

The life we are promised through Christ is intended to satisfy our souls and heal us of all neediness, that we may live an inward life being content and at peace, no matter what our circumstances.

To truly believe Jesus means you really expect something. To say to the Lord as often as you are thirsty, “Lord, I thirst, and you promised.”

Surely it breaks God’s heart to offer every means of satisfying the souls of his children and have them live mean, lonely, frustrated lives. Christ later assured his disciples,

I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35).

John 6:35 NIV

He covered it all. He boldly promised. No matter whether you call it hunger or thirst, Jesus stepped up and said, “You can expect me to satisfy that.”

How do we drink from the fountain of life? How do we partake of the Bread of Life? Jesus told us that too:

Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

(John 7:37-39, NIV emphasis mine)

We drink of Jesus by trusting the Holy Spirit. Being filled with His Spirit, and engaging with the Spirit continually — as a lifestyle. When you learn to live in constant companionship with the Spirit, you’ll discover the contentment Jesus promised.

David the shepherd, warrior and king knew this very well. He was one of those rare, privileged souls whose life was filled with the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. His writings reveal a human soul who knew and understood God through the Holy Spirit’s influence upon him.

David experienced every major problem known to man: danger, betrayal, rejection, long-suffering (waiting years for God’s promises to be fulfilled), personal failure, and the afflictions of old age.

Without benefit of Bible, conferences and teaching tapes, David experienced such a deeply satisfying relationship with God — through the Spirit — that he uttered ecstatically:

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

Psalm 63:2-5 NIV

Why is your contentment so important to God?

First, of course, is that He loves you, and love longs to satisfy the beloved in every way. But there is another reason: a hungry soul is a vulnerable soul. The honest man who goes hungry long enough may even become a thief to get a piece of bread. An unsatisfied soul is exposed to myriad dangers as a result of reaching for something to make it feel all right: wrong relationships, addictions, perverted lifestyles, dead-end careers. I know, because I lived it, until Christ saved me.

However, being saved doesn’t automatically keep you from these dangers. Being satisfied does. Only the person whose hunger and thirst is satisfied is safe from that which would possess and rule his soul.

Here’s the thing: the fact that you live with the Fountain of Life doesn’t mean your thirst is automatically satisfied. You must believe, and you must turn to Him for that drink.