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Juan Ponce de Leon was born in San Servas, Spain, in 1460. In 1493, he sailed with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. From the Hispaniola, Ponce de Leon led a successful expedition to the island of Puerto Rico and established its first permanent European community. It was in Puerto Rico that he began hearing stories from the natives of a “fountain of youth.” The natives said that on the island of Bimini, a small island in the Bahamas, there was a fountain that if you drank or bathed in its sweet, perpetual waters “it would make old men young.”

Excited about the prospect of finding a fountain of eternal life, he convinced King Ferdinand of Spain to authorize an expedition to Bimini. Ponce de Leon agreed to underwrite with his own funds the expenses of the voyage. On March 3, 1512, he set sail with sixty men in three small ships.

On April 2, he landed in Florida and claimed it for Spain. For seven months he traversed the peninsula looking for the fountain. One of his ships eventually did find the island of Bimini, but no one has ever located “the fountain of youth.”

A great deal of money is spent today searching for that fountain of youth. Companies hawk age defying products with ever more frequency. Each year more and more baby boomers are reaching retirement age. These elderly citizens represent a large part of the population of the United States and they control a great deal of its wealth. Playing on the vanities of this age group, companies are trying hard to create products that will potentially prolong the life of these consumers. Plastic surgery is the fastest growing field of medicine with many doctors living a rather lavish lifestyle because of the number of clients seeking their services.

A certain Samaritan woman went to fetch water one day from Jacob’s well, in Sychar and when she got there she found a Jewish man sitting by the well. A conversation ensued whereby the Jewish man asked the Samaritan woman to give him something to drink. This struck the woman as odd because Jewish men did not associate with Samaritan women and she asked him why he would ask her for something to drink. The man replied back that if she knew with whom she was speaking she would be asking him for something to drink. In her defense she did not know this man so she replied with and who are you? Are you more important that Jacob you actually dug this well, besides you have nothing to fetch water from this deep well so how do you suppose you are going to give me something to drink?

The man replied that if she drank from Jacob’s well she would be thirsty again, but the water he was offering would give her eternal life. (John 4:4-14 (GW))

Ponce De Leon went looking for the fountain of youth and only found water, while the Samaritan woman went looking for water and found the fountain of youth.

Living forever or at least as long as one can is the goal of everyone born under the sun, and yet it is as elusive as Juan Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth. Scripture tells us a fountain of life really does exist. Jesus said when he was on the earth that he was the water of life, and that anyone who would drink of that water would never thirst. A fountain of water that provides complete refreshing. A fountain that provides a drink that completely satisfies. Pure living water, Jesus proclaimed, would gush up and give them everlasting life. Now that sounds like a fountain of youth to me.

But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness. Isaiah 40:31 (BBE)

Along for the journey