Water of Life

Once, a painter visited Saint Paisios in his cell.

The Saint, with that original and instructive humor that distinguished him, asked him:

"Hey, my child could you draw me a picture, with the subject I'm going to tell you? I want to put it in my cell."

The artist willingly says to Saint Paisios:

"Elder, with your blessing!! This is what I do. What would you like the painting look like?"

"Can you draw some mountains?"

"It's easy, elder," replies the painter.

"Can you also draw some trees that I will tell you?"

"Of course elder."

So, after Saint Paisios told him some other things that he would like the painting to have, at the end he says:

"Can you also draw a faucet with running water?"

"But elder, it's not difficult for me at all," the painter replies with simplicity.

And then Saint Paisios asks him, with the didactic humor that distinguished him:

"From the tap that will be on the table, can someone drink water and quench their thirst?"

"Of course not elder," replied the painter.

And then the Saint said to him:

“How different, then, are the works of men from the works of God!

As much, therefore, as one can quench one's thirst from the water of a painted fountain, so much more can one quench one's thirst from the works of God! Human existence truly quenches its thirst only through the works of God, Who, after all, offers the "Water of Life"!!!