Redigging Wells

I live in a semi-arid region of the country--Southern California. With no big river or lake nearby to supply fresh water, and with historically rapid population growth, water rights have had to be acquired in far-reaching places like the Owens Valley and the Colorado River, hundreds of miles away, and the water has had to be moved from there to SoCal in great aqueducts, often through pumping stations over mountains. (For movie buffs, this is the underlying reality that fuels the plot of Chinatown).

But a lot of people, even in SoCal, are not aware that the northern area of Orange County, California, is served by one of the largest managed aquifer systems in the U.S.. That means that there are a series of ponds that capture rain and river runoff into "percolation" ponds that feed into deep underground aquifers. Then there are roughly 400 wells throughout the area to draw water from those underground lakes.

Wells were a very important source of water in the semi-arid herding region of southern Canaan during the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And we are told that Abraham dug significant wells to water his flocks. Perhaps the most famous is Beer Sheba (which means "the well of seven" or "the well of the oath").

When his son, Isaac, returned to the same areas to graze his flocks, he found that the wells that had been dug by his father had been blocked up by Abimelech and his men.

"So all the wells that his father's servants had dug during the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth" (Gen. 26: 15).


Have you ever spent time growing in your prayer life and your spiritual life, only to go through a transformation and find later that those wells of spiritual discipline have been stopped up?

And so, Isaac started to dig the wells again for himself. At first he encountered a lot of opposition from his enemies, the Philistines. Thus he names the early wells Esek (dispute) and Sitnah (quarrel). But after a while, his efforts went uncontested. The next well is named "Rehoboth" meaning "wide places." You can almost hear Isaac sigh loudly, "Ahh, at last, elbow room!"

One of the things that we must do is to revisit the significant connections with God that have been dug in the past and rediscover what we may have forgotten. Perhaps you have kept a journal. (If not, I encourage you to start now.) How often do you go back and read what you've written?

Finally Isaac swears an oath of peace with Abimelech and his commander, Phicol;
"That day, Isaac's servants came and told him, 'We've found water!' He called it Shibah (the oath), and to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba (well of the oath)" (Gen. 26: 32-33).

The goal of digging the wells of spiritual connection with God is that we would be able to occupy the land that God is giving us. Figuratively, that means, that we grasp hold of the victories and the promises that God has given us and hold onto it. Rather than wandering away and allowing the enemy to steal that from us.

It does not mean that we have to live in the past. But it means that, as we move forward, we don't lose the richness of what God has already done in us.

Do you have an old well that has been stopped up in your life? Is it time to dig it up again?