Weekly Devotional: Stop Drinking the Dead Water

Jesus offers living water that truly satisfies. This devotional urges us to stop returning to “dead water” — habits and relationships that drain us — and embrace grace, renewal and spiritual growth.

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Read time 3 minutes

Riley Parsons

Published on Jun 13, 2025

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, He didn’t just offer her a drink — He invited her to confront her thirst, reimagine her worth and see her entire life in the light of grace instead of shame. He offered her living water.

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.
John 4:13-14a, NIV

We all have wells we return to. The places we go to feel secure, seen or soothed. Maybe it’s a packed schedule. Maybe it’s social media. Maybe it’s that relationship we keep going back to even though it leaves us feeling more empty than full. So easily, we can become accustomed to drawing from sources that appear life-giving but quietly deplete us, and we forget a better way even exists.

What Is “Dead Water”?

There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
Proverbs 14:12, NIV

“Dead water” refers to things we turn to when we’re spiritually dry. For the Samaritan woman, dead water looked like multiple past marriages and living with a man she wasn’t married to. For us, it might be friends who make us feel included but encourage choices we know don’t honor God. These relationships offer comfort but not covenant; attention but not love. Like the water in Samaria, no matter how many times we drink from it, the well eventually runs dry.

Why We Keep Going Back

We often return to what’s familiar not because it’s fulfilling but because it’s easy. We cling to habits, relationships and mindsets that feel safe, even if we know we’ll be thirsty again.

Jesus didn’t wait for the Samaritan woman to leave the man she was living with before offering her living water. He does the same for us — meets us right where we are, not to expose our shame but to invite us toward the ever-flowing well of grace and salvation.

What Living Water Really Offers

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the water… Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Isaiah 55:1-2, NIV

The living water Jesus offers is more than just comfort; it is the promise of salvation. It flows from His sacrifice on the cross, where He gave His life so that we could be forgiven, restored and made new. When we drink this living water — by His grace, through faith — we are not just refreshed; we are reborn. We are invited into a new way of living shaped by the presence of God. As our hearts are renewed in Him, our choices begin to reflect that change. The way we live becomes evidence of our Creator. Proper spiritual health always flows from the source, and that source is Christ.

Letting Go

You can’t fill what’s already full.

Jesus didn’t force the Samaritan woman to abandon her past, but He made it clear that the life she truly needed couldn’t be found where she’d been searching. In the same way, drinking the living water begins with a decision: to stop going back to what doesn’t satisfy. That might mean walking away from sinful habits that once comforted us, reevaluating who we allow to influence us or being honest about the areas of Scripture we cherry-pick to follow and discarding the rest.

This isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about creating space for the Holy Spirit to move and nurture existing faith. Living water doesn’t pour into perfection — Jesus already achieved that — it flows into surrender.

When we stop drinking the dead water, even imperfectly, we open ourselves to something far better: a deeper faith, a stronger relationship with God and a life shaped by His presence instead of endless thirst.

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Riley Parsons

Approved and verified accurate by the Local Outreach Coordinator of the Department of Spiritual Life on May 30, 2025.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Grand Canyon University. Any sources cited were accurate as of the publish date.