Faith & Perseverance - Do you have them?

In my current textbook for a Global University course I've been taking (Relationships & Ethics in Ministry), I read a chapter on Evangelism that talked extensively about the need for us to have faith. The author cited a story by Michael Cassidy, a South African who founded African Enterprise. He used the story to highlight the need for having faith while speaking to a person wavering in his belief in the Resurrection. It is in Chapter 10, pg. 125. The story goes like this:


[The following letter was found many years ago in a tin, tied to an old pump on a remote dessert trail]

This pump is all right as of June 1932. I put a new sucker washer into it and it ought to last five years. But the washer dries out and the pump has to be primed. Under the white rock, I buried a bottle of water, out of the sun and cork end up. There is enough water in it to prime the pump, but not enough if you drink some first. Pour about one-fourth and let her soak to wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast and pump like crazy. You will get water. The well has never run dry. Have faith. When you get watered up, fill the bottle and put it back as you found it for the next feller. Desert Pete. 

What would you do? Would you go for the inadequate supply or the unlimited supply supposedly down in the ground? The thirsty man had to make a decision. Did he have faith and follow the instructions? If he was short sighted, he would go for the short supply. If he truly saw the big picture, he would take that leap of faith and use the pump. Of course, we don't know his fate.

We are also in a dessert with a well. We too have to make a decision. Those who have chosen the well are now drinking. Those who haven't are still waiting for that water. Jesus told us:

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14).

Are we and those around us drinking from the bottle of water or are we drinking from the spring? What do we do if the nonbelievers are not willing to take that leap of faith? We must work on continuing our relationship with them. We must continue to connect and show that we care about them. We need to persevere in the task assigned to us by Jesus.  We need to continue to model the example set for us by Him and lead them to the well..