I relate so much to the woman at the well. It captures one of my favourite traits about God in one of His names ‘El Roi’ - The God who sees. Not see as in just looking through His eyes, but it means to behold, to consider. It implies intentionality and focus, nurture and commitment.
I couldn’t think of a better story to tell, better truths to unveil as i start my writing journey. It all started with an encounter with a man who changed everything, for this woman, the same way it did for me. He beheld me in my miry clay, took me out and offered me, living water.
Found in the gospel of John, chapter 4, the story starts with Jesus, passing through Samaria on His way to Galilee. He was tired, so He decided to chill at a well while His disciples went to get some food. According to scripture, it was around noon. He met a Samaritan woman and asked her for some water to drink. A seemingly simple interaction was a catalyst to a city being saved through the word of an outcast.
Background & “Barriers”
…then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. ( John 4:9 NKJV)
Cultural, religious and political division seems to be woven into the fabric of the human experience, it was no exception in Jesus’ time. The Samaritans and the Jews were like cousins that did not get along.
The Samaritans were a people born from the intermarrying of Jews and the Assyrians who were pagan worshipers. As a result, they mixed their traditional Jewish faith with pagan practices and worship, which, among other political hostilities, caused them to be considered unclean and detestable to the Jews. So much so that the Jews much prefered taking a longer, more arduous journey to Galilee, through Jericho, bypassing Samaria all together.
Maybe “cousins that didn’t get along” was putting mildly, they were enemies.
Gender was another barrier, in those days, women were not allowed to converse with men they were not related to, especially in the absence of her husband. The work of Jesus was not limited by the culture of the time, the divisions that we, mere humans, create and find evidence to substantiate. He was a rebel with a cause - “to seek and save the lost” ( Luke 19:10 ).
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…” “For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. ( Matthew 9:10-13 NKJV )
Our mission is the same at its core, but do we see beyond barriers or do we consciously or unsconciously enforce them ?
Let us be reminded …"that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ( Romans 8:38-39 NKJV).
The love of God knows no barrier, whether those created by man or those that we, in our human frailty try to erect.
God Shaped Holes & Living Water
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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 NKJV ).
At this point we have learnt a little more about our good sis, she was a reject in society, an outcast. She was drawing water in the heat, at noon, when it was typical for women in that era to draw water in the evening, when it was cool.
The well was a place where women gathered to socialize, our girl was on the outs. It’s easy for us to sometimes forget that God knows everything about us. He sees our past, present and future all at the same time. Here, he offered her water, living water first. He saw her thirst.
The thirst within her that desired to be quenched, He saw the God shaped hole in her heart, her soul. He saw her shame and offered her THE solution.
She initially saw this solution as a way to escape her shame when what he offered was so much more than that. It was as if the well, a symbol of community, provision and relief, was a reminder of the shame she carried and the isolation she felt. Isn’t it amazing that, that is the very place He met her?
You know that thing that God does sometimes where He shakes your whole life to bring you to the end of yourself, so He can get your attention? Yea, that was me in 2022. The crutches I used to prop me up were breaking one by one.
The highs weren’t high anymore and anxiety, my friendly foe, demanded a pound of flesh. There was no longer any sweeping space under the rug that was home to the pain i carried, numbed and ignored.
We all have or have had God shaped holes, that we have been desperate to fill with something else, it is this deep thirst that drives us into the arms of persons and things that cannot hold us, temporary balms for our suffering, shallow wells.
We see our sins, especially the “sticky” ones, the ones we fight that fight us back; lust, fornication, masturbation, porn, as the problem. We want to be completely delivered. I’ve been there. But what if these aren’t problems, but symptoms of being thirsty?
Trying to fill the God shaped holes within us with something else and painfully failing as we emerge dissatisfied and disgusted. And yet we go back to these sticky sins again and again why ? Because we get thirsty again.
The 28th verse in Matthew 11 says “ Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest”. Isaiah 61:3-4 says “to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning”.
There is always an exchange with God, He is always looking to take our mess, our shame and offer us something else, something greater, something truly satisfying ; freedom, rest, deliverance - that is the living water.
Only water from the divine, the kind He offers, the kind that lives and works within you as you partake. The kind that eventually flow out into Substack newsletters, an encouraging word to a friend, a prayer for an unsaved spouse or family member is the kind that truly, truly, satisfies.
“Blessed [joyful, nourished by God’s goodness] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [those who actively seek right standing with God], for they will be [completely] satisfied”. ( Matthew 5:6 AMP )
So.. How do we get it ?
I highlighted “knew” in the verse above, did you catch it ?
He said, if you knew the gift of God, then you would ask Him. Our access to living water is found in our knowledge of Him and our willingness to ask, to seek. An encounter will only sustain us for so long. We all want more faith, to trust Him more than we do, it’s in knowing and seeking that these things are developed, yes, developed, as in not overnight, with a constant pursuit. It’s a journey. So much of our faith journey is wrapped up in knowing God.
Doing and being “…but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits ( Daniel 11:32 NKJV).
Understanding - “…and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding ( Proverbs 9:10 NKJV ).
What you sippin’ on ?
I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to think of things you are struggling with now, maybe its worry for you, letting go off something or someone, a bad habit. It is so easy for us to be sin conscious as God’s children. We pray like Paul did and say God, if you could just change THIS about me, remove THIS thorn, but what if He is highlighting something to us? Bringing our attention to a dry place within us, a thirst he wants to quench with living water?
If we know the gift of God, why do we not readily receive it ?
Our sis had 5 husbands ( I knowww, spoiler alert, more on this in part II ) but He offered her something greater, satisfaction without her having to revisit a place of pain and shame. This gift, He offers to all of us. Barriers don’t exist to Him, there is nothing that can separate you from His love.
He who did not spare [even] His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? ( Romans 8:32 AMP ).
So friend, What you sippin’ on ? Is you satisfied?
Part II in a few!
Resonated so much with this 🫶🏾
Wow I just read through this same passage this morning! Love the connections here.