Where is the Nectar?

This cute little skipper butterfly is trying to drink nectar and as we watch it, we're cracking up.  First, it's drinking through a hole an insect made in the side of the flower instead of through the open end of the flower.  Second, the flower is detached from the plant.  Nectar is no longer at the base of the flower.  Shortly after we snapped this photo, the flower fell off, butterfly still holding onto it.  As soon as the flower started falling, the butterfly flew to another flower.

It isn't an unusual sight.  This Cloudless Sulphur butterfly is attempting to drink nectar from a flower that has fallen onto a leaf.  It's like trying to drink through a straw lying on a table - not inserted into a glass.  Nothing is at the other end!

Here the same thing is happening once again.  This Gulf Fritillary butterfly is trying to drink nectar from this fallen canna lily bloom.  The flower is covered with dew, but that's all. 

These butterflies are driven by instinct.  They see the flower and they do not register whether the flower is attached to the plant or not.  They spend several minutes searching with their proboscises for nectar before they give up and fly to another flower. 

Thinking about these butterflies who are failing in their search for food at these flowers or ending up drinking just dewdrops instead of nectar, it makes me want to stop and do a self-check on my feeding.  Am I searching for food where none exists? Am I settling for less than full sustenance?

When Jesus talked with the woman at the well, he told her that he was the living water.   Without her knowing that the best that God could give to her was there in person, talking with her, Jesus told her, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water."  

She responded with, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."  

She didn't have it quite right but with our limited understanding, we can't have it quite right.  But Jesus takes care of what we can't.  She would still need to go to the well to draw water to drink for her physical body.  The wonderful gift was that her spiritual body would be filled and not thirst. 

I hope I never become satisfied with less than the best that God wants to give me. 

John 4:10-15

Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.   Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.  There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)  Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.  Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.   The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?   Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?   Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.  The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.