I’m not sure how to dig a working well…. You know, like, back in those golden olden days of previous centuries. We all have our imaginations as to what such a well looks like, brick or stone above the ground, beneath a well house cover, and a big bucket with a rope just waiting for you to draw some cool spring water from below!
I’m not sure how they dug wells back then, but I do remember attempting to hand dig a well with an auger. There was no motorized spinning of the auger as it went into the ground, rather, it had a cross piece on top that you used your muscles to turn. As the auger goes deeper, you keep adding a pipe to the top piece before it sinks out of sight.
It was 1965 or so. Ace, Texas. Building a house for dad’s parents, and all water in the area came from wells. Borrowed equipment… Intelligent guessing on location… Get to work! The ground was sandy loam and red clay, and every few twists of the auger created a sloughing of the sand. Hard. Back breaking work. Impossible for us to make any headway. We ended up having a water well company (Vanya?) come out with fancy equipment and before long we had running water from about 120 feet below the surface, a pressure tank and well house on top of the ground, and an interesting experience to boot!
Grandma and Grandpa were moving from a house where there was no running water! A narrow concrete pipe opening tapped the underground water supply and everything was drawn by hand and delivered into the house by a bucket.
The bucket used to draw the water out of the well looked a lot like this contraption. It was always fun to let the bucket down by rope, allow it to sink into the water below, and wheel it back to the surface via a rope and pulley. I don’t ever remember having problems lifting the water out of the ground, but you would lift the bucket out of the well, tilt the bottom over a regular bucket, pull the finger-hole lever at the top, and the bottom would open so the water could pour out.
From memory and the looks of this example, there was probably 1-3 gallons drawn. About 12-18 pounds of liquid, plus the equipment, and the hauling distance must have been 40 feet or so. I’m so thankful someone figured out that a pulley helped ease the weight!
Where I live today, we all have our own personal water wells on each property. Its pump is far below the surface, and the top is capped off and protected, but since it was completed before we moved in, I’m not sure how deep the water is. I do know there are times that the aquifer must be low because the water doesn’t come out of the spigot as fast as other times. It may be when there is a lot of water drawn from others tapped into the same source. It may be at times when the source has not been replenished in a timely manner from the snow melt of Mt Rainier. It could even be some sediment clogging the filter.
Regardless, think about what happens when your water source is not adequately replenished to meet your needs. In my imagination, I see an empty cave-like area that could easily be the next sinkhole waiting to open up! Or the sediment is so thick and cloudy you would not imagine drinking the water even if you could access anything from down there! Murky. Dangerous. Yes. We filter the water before it comes to our spigot and the filter is changed every 3-4 months.
So, imagine what it must have been like in olden days when every drop of water came from manual labor. Wells needed to be kept clear of debris. The steps of all those larger wells required regular maintenance for the safety of the people walking up and down the steps. For smaller wells, the openings were often concealed beneath rocks that required effort to roll rocks on and off the opening.
Hard work for life giving water!
Here’s my thought today. In my journeying to Israel, I’ve walked down into cavern like entrances where a well existed. It’s nothing quite like my vivid imagination because they have to protect all those tourists! But I do think about water needs in an arid and dry place and what it must have been like hundreds and thousands of years ago.
King David was far from home, and his army was in a hard battle against the Philistines. Imagine the hard work of fighting with nothing buy manual tools of the trade. There was no air-strike or distant mortar doing damage, it was all that you could do from the sweat of your brow and the strength of your arm.
In a moment of down time, scripture puts David in a reflective mood.
And David longed, and said,
Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem,
which is by the gate!
(2 Samuel 23:15)
Not a bad request! He yearned for water from a different time and place of life. Maybe he was remembering what it must be like back home, and maybe it’s the spring water that he remembers drawing from as a kid, maybe even the best tasting water around.
The only problem? That’s where the enemy was stationed! Some of his men heard him and three of them, described as being Mighty, broke through the enemy lines and drew some water for their King. The fought through the enemy lines to the well, and then had to fight on their way back to David! Because of their sacrifice, David did not feel worthy to drink and poured it out unto the Lord. Their sacrifice became his worship to God.
There are times we draw from the wells of our memories and they sustain us. There are times those memories keep us going just by their recall. And there are times that we thank God for the life-sustaining memories which are just as fresh as if we tasted them again. Today. Right now.
We are often refreshed by the memories of a different time and place! Store up those treasures in real time, so that you can draw from them in some far off future place and time. Click To TweetWe are often refreshed by the memories of a different time and place! Store up those treasures in real time, so that you can draw from them in some far off future place and time.
Not to take it out of context from its original meaning, but Solomon penned these words that sort of speak to me this morning.
Drink water from your own cistern,
And running water from your own well.
(Proverbs 5:15 NKJV)
A cistern is simply a storage place for water collected over time and then used when the need is the greatest. Again, in an arid place like Israel, cisterns were very common. On the top of Masada where Herod would reside at certain seasons, there were huge cisterns that captured rainwater as exampled by this photo. They built channels for the water to flow in and out of the cisterns.
I remember an artesian well (a well bored perpendicularly into water-bearing strata lying at an angle so that natural pressure produces a constant supply of water with little or no pumping) that helped to fill several ponds. That spigot never stopped running! There was a collection tank at its opening. Ice cold water! It was the night time bathing place, as well as the day time swimming hole. I wonder if it’s still running today, 50 years later.
I remember many a well hand-pumping station over the camping and hiking years that you loved accessing because you were in desperate need of water! Equally, I remember that cold water pouring into a basin that you could soak your tired feet in! Trail Refreshments!
I remember the creek running out of the ground behind my aunt’s place and how we could always find water to drink, and a place to swim, and always know we could enjoy the experience because it never seemed to run dry!
One last thing, and it is truly the spiritual capstone of who we are. You need to refresh your source of water often, especially as you use what you’ve received. Study Jesus talking with the woman at Jacob’s well that was created hundreds of years before. He tells the woman that the water you draw from the natural well will need to be drawn again as you thirst, but there is a well of “living water” that will never dry up, and will produce everlasting life!
Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
(John 4:12-15 NKJV)
The water Jesus speaks of is not naturally drawn from a hole in the ground but will be something we have internally that will produce this fountain of Living Water. It was prophesied by Isaiah! (Isaiah 12:2-3) This was what all of Israel was yearning for, and now, it has arrived. All you must do is to receive His Spirit, and you will have the ability to tap into the Living Water every day of your life.
Let me tell you a secret, I’m sure it’s something you know.
When the years get long, and the days grow short,
There is something to be enjoyed
When you dip your mind into the well of your memory,
Then enjoy the sensations of another place and time.
The key is to have those experiences Now
From life your present life and learning
So you will have the well that will never run dry.