The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)When Jesus asked the woman to give him a drink, little did she realize how her life would change. She thought they were talking about physical thirst, but Jesus was talking about spiritual thirst. Still, you have to follow her line of thinking:
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4:9-15
1. If she drank the water Jesus gave her, she wouldn’t have to come back to the well.
2. If she didn’t have to come back to the well, she wouldn’t have to schedule her water drawing so that she avoided the other women.
3. If she didn’t have to schedule differently to avoid others, life would be better.
She was interested because she thought it would make her life easier.
When we have run into the challenges associated with abandonment (remember these other related issues: desertion, invalidation, withdrawal, cast off), it is often our first impulse just to do whatever is the least hassle. The least hassle is most often the least effective. We have to acknowledge our feelings of abandonment or acknowledge another person’s feeling of abandonment. Once those feelings are acknowledged, we must do something...we must act. Most often we choose to overcompensate by joining everything so that we don’t have to deal with the feelings we might have if we aren’t included.
What changes did the Samaritan woman have to make? Jesus let her know that she needed to quit living the life she was currently living—one of sin. He told her that she was to follow what the Messiah said—and that he is the Messiah! Do you wonder whether or not she did as he said? What changes do you think she made? Jesus talked to her about what true worship is. If he told her what she was doing, and then he told her what she needed to be doing, don’t you think she made those changes? It wouldn’t necessarily mean that she wouldn’t continue to face challenges, but he was giving her what she needed to make the changes she needed to meet those challenges.
Your Mission
Name one or two practices you have that you are resistant to change. Ask someone close to you if their life would be better if you did change. Pray about it together.
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