A new year, a new understanding

New year's day nearly always represent new beginnings for people in some aspect of life or another. It's important for people to get new starts. We live in compartments and experience life in phases. We live from one holiday to the next, from one vacation time to another, from one season of the year to the next. We practice our understandings better at seasons of recall than in the long haul.

So, I am going to try this coming year to understand a particular set of Jesus' words better than the last year. The words come from John 4 when Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well and asks for a drink of water. Although the woman does not refuse a drink outright, she finds a way of putting off Jesus' request.

Jesus answered, "If you only knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water."
"Sir," the woman said, "you don't have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would you get that life-giving water? It was our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well; he and his children and his flocks all drank from it. You don't claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?"
Jesus answered, "Those who drink this water will get thirsty again, but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them eternal life."
"Sir," the woman said, "give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water."

Like the Samaritan woman, I am intrigued with having water that gives me life now and eternity later. So, I ask for this kind of water. The comparison of concrete water to an abstract water has much to offer in the way of understanding. It's the obvious—following Jesus' teachings lead to eternal life. But, it may be the less obvious. Once Jesus' teachings are ingested, they are the spring within us that keeps us from having to go back again and again. We don't need to keep reviewing, we need to enjoy the perpetual spring, our conscience, that considers what we already know to be true.

Forgiveness and slander come to mind as two teachings we have ingested but really don't enjoy our consciences considering. We don't have to review the teachings on forgiveness and slander over and over. Our consciences remind us each time an occasion arises to continue on a higher path or ignore the right behavior and take the lower road. The teaching has been ingested so we really do know which behavior leads to life.

There are many more nuggets here. I want to revisit them at regular intervals during the year and check my understanding.

Happy new year, happy new beginnings in whatever way you are starting new.