Thirst Misattributed
By David Sherwood
I’ve often carried a deep longing for “real” relationship—the kind where I’m truly seen and known, where the conversation moves beneath the surface and something mutual and meaningful is exchanged. These days, I recognize it as a good and honest ache.
And for a while, I thought the problem was that others just weren’t willing to go there. I’d leave conversations feeling disappointed, even lonely, thinking, They just don’t want the same kind of connection I do.
But over time, I started to notice something. Without meaning to, I was bringing a deep thirst into relationships—expecting others to meet needs in me I hadn’t fully named. It wasn’t that I was trying to use people. It was more subtle than that: I was hoping to find, in someone else, something that could settle the ache in me. And when they couldn’t—when they were distracted, limited, or simply human—I felt let down.
It reminded me of that conversation Jesus had with the woman at the well. She came to draw water, and he told her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.” I used to think the living water was just a metaphor for living forever—eternal life in some distant future. But Jesus defined eternal life in a much more relational way: “This is eternal life,” he prayed, “that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Now I wonder if he was naming the deeper thirst we all carry—the ache we bring into our relationships, our work, even our faith practices. A thirst not just to be rescued, but to be known. To be connected at the source.
Like the woman at the well, I’ve come to recognize that there’s a kind of thirst beneath all the others—a spiritual thirst that no amount of human connection can ultimately satisfy. Relationships are like water: beautiful, life-giving, essential. But they’re also temporary and limited. They refresh us, but they don’t quench the deeper thirst that lives under the surface of our longing to be fully known and loved.
That’s why Jesus’s words to her matter so much. He wasn’t dismissing her need for relationship—he was offering her something more lasting. A source within. A kind of life that doesn't dry up when others disappoint us. Real relationship, it turns out, isn’t the problem. But I was asking it to do something it was never meant to do.
Connection with others is beautiful, necessary, even sacred. But it isn’t the well. At best, it’s a reflection of something deeper. When we quietly hope that others will carry what only God—or solitude, or grace—can truly hold, we set ourselves up for disappointment.
When I realized that I can’t quench an existential thirst through those who aren’t the source of my existence, something in me began to shift. I started noticing the presence of deeper connection everywhere. Not always dramatic. Not always profound. But real—quiet, mutual, and marked by a kind of peace I hadn’t known before, like finding water in a place I’d stopped expecting it.
