Joseph Campbell, a well-known authority on mythology, said that his friends were living “wasteland lives.” He said they were “just baffled; they’re wandering in the wasteland without any sense of where the water is—the Source that makes everything green.”

That could also be said—and with deepest sorrow—about countless people today. They try one thing after another to quench the thirst of their souls. Many people even resort to an empty spirituality, which Campbell did so much to popularize. But as the prophet Jeremiah said, they’ve made for themselves “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13).

Whatever Campbell himself may have believed, “the Source that makes everything green” is Jesus Christ our blessed Savior. He is the One who gives “living water,” which becomes “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (Jn. 4:10,14).

If you have responded to the gospel and personally received Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin, you have that fountain springing up within your soul (Jn. 7:37-38). Now you can pray for the “baffled” people around you, and offer the “living water” to those who are thirsty and wandering in a parched, Christless wasteland.


I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him. —Bonar

Only Jesus, the Living Water, can satisfy our thirst for God.