As much as I love to read, The Little Prince has never been my cup of tea. I only learned about it when then beauty candidate, Ruffa Gutierrez impressed the Miss World judges by quoting from it.

I have read it since and even went to its dedicated museum in Singapore but still nothing. I just appreciate how the drawing became iconic.

And then a few days ago, I chanced upon a YouTube video explaining what makes it great. It only succeeded in making me shake my head but the host caught my interest when he mentioned a scene where a merchant was selling the little prince water pills that eliminates the need to drink every so often in a day.

As a born-again believer, the reference to not having to drink water as often, naturally made me think of the woman at the well. The woman was marginalized for being a female, a woman with a past, and a mestiza. Unlike our society today where tisays are worshipped, a half-Jew is almost a pariah. A woman had no standing back then and given that she's had four men in her life and was living with someone not her husband (and who may be someone's husband), she was at the bottom of the respect food chain. So when Jesus struck up a conversation with her, she was incredulous that a Jewish man would do such thing. Even his disciples were appalled. The woman was at first civil and then later brought out her religious card to debate with Him. But Jesus refused to take the bait and instead offered her Living Water.

Perhaps because she just wanted to avoid people staring and judging her.

Perhaps it's because she didn't want to draw water from the well at an ungodly hour of twelve noon. (I think the summer weather can make us all relate to her woe.)

Or perhaps she has both and more reasons to jump at the chance to never have to come out and draw water, she cried, "Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!” (John 4:15, The Message)

Although she had physical water in mind, her eyes and heart were suddenly opened, and she understood that before her was The Living Water who will nourish her spiritually. Never will she thirst again for acceptance because she knew who had accepted her with a chance to change her life.

From being an unwilling anti-social, she became an instant extrovert as she ran back and told the very people who made her a pariah, “'Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?' And they went out to see for themselves."

The pill in The Little Prince only promises not having to drink for 53 minutes a week. Given that it's just a work of fiction, it's useless in real life and in the life that really matters---the hereafter.

Have you drunk from the Living Water that cleanses our unrighteousness and makes us pure in the presence of a holy God? Like the woman at the well, come to the Living Water who knows you inside and out and yet still loves you. Jesus is the Messiah who not only saves us, but changes us from the inside out.