In 1854, during the reign of Queen Victoria, there was a cholera outbreak near Broad Street in Soho, London. The illness was on a rampage. Within three days, 127 people had perished, and just ten days later, that death toll soared to over 500.
There was very little knowledge about illness or its transmission, but the theory that it was spread through the air was accepted by most people. That is, until a Soho doctor, Dr. John Snow, working closely with a local minister, Henry Whitehead, began interviewing residents and plotting a cluster map of the cases.
Their research pointed to a community well located on Broad Street as the source of the illness. It’s believed that a diaper from a baby with cholera had contaminated the well. The handle was removed from the well. The surrounding community that depended on that well for life giving water were going to a source that offered the complete opposite.
The well was poisoned.
In Samaria, Jesus met a woman who was also drinking from a poisoned well.
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
(John 4: 10-12,15)
Her source for hope and happiness had left her wanting. Based on the context, we can perhaps believe she was looking to fill an emptiness with Mr. Right. Five husbands later, she still hadn’t found the right guy. Her “source” was poisoned.
I believe this world is filled with poisoned wells. I believe I may be drinking from them every day.
Like the woman at the well, I don’t want to be thirsty anymore; I want to solve my water problem.
However, also like her, I tend to draw from the wrong wells. On the surface they appear to offer life-giving water, but if we trace the line, we find a source that has been compromised.
I picture sneaky Satan finding wells teeming over with God’s blessing and goodness, and adding just enough pollution to muddy the water.
Just a smidge of selfishness to sour a relationship…
a splash of greed to ruin the blessing of a good job…
a tinge of gossip to dry up the well of friendship.
Sources of life that God intended for good, but Satan adds a bit of filth and the well is poisoned.
Jesus told her of a living water—a water only he could provide.
Satan tried to pollute it (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4) and found he could not. When I am sick, tired, and thirsty, I almost always find that I have been drawing from poisoned wells. I dip my bucket into television, social media, self-help books, podcasts…there is a lot of free advice out there when you start looking. When we turn to Google before we turn to God, there lies the problem. Trace the source. At the end of the day, the answer is always Jesus.
Here is a little sidenote about Dr. John Snow. His theory was not warmly regarded when he presented it. It pointed a condemning finger at some powerful people. He was not regarded as a hero to the commoner either. As you can imagine, they did not like being told they were drinking fecal water.
Dr. Snow died just four years after his breakthrough and six years later, cholera was proven to be a water born disease. Dr. Snow died without seeing the impact of his discovery, but every time we go to our faucet and fill a glass of clean water, we can thank Dr. Snow for his work, which led to new sanitation standards and regulations.
May we have enough courage to call out the poisoned wells and enough faith to remove the handle.
Big dreams and brave hearts, Jenn
