Steadfast, Immovable, Abounding

This is the first installment in my series of posts entitled “180°: lives turned around by God’s grace.”

In John 4, we read of a Samaritan woman who comes to a well where Jesus is sitting to rest. He begins the conversation by asking the woman for a drink. She asks Him why, as a Jew, He would ask for a drink from a Samaritan woman. Jesus tells her that if she knew who He was, she would have asked Him and He would have given her living water. Again the woman has questions: she wonders how He will draw water from such a deep well and asks if He is greater than their forefather Jacob. In verses 13-14, Jesus responds, “‘Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.’” The woman asks Him to give her some of this water. But in the next few moments, she realizes that Jesus knows the dark parts of her life that she tried to keep shamefully hidden: “you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband.” They discuss worship, and Jesus tells her it’s not about where you do it, but the heart with which you do it. He then reveals Himself to her as the Christ.      

During the first part of the conversation, the woman seems to have a doubtful question or a bitter reply to everything Jesus says. Like many people, and even the disciples at times, she sees Jesus through the lens of her worldly expectations. “The well is deep”, she says, not realizing she’s speaking to the God who created the water she seeks. This bitterness and distrust is really a sign of her shame, the shame which prompts her to hide her sin from Jesus when she says, “‘I have no husband.’” But why does she hide it from Him? Why do any of us attempt to hide our sins from the Lord when He knows each one? Psalm 29:15 says, “Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the Lord, and whose deeds are done in a dark place, and they say, ‘Who sees us?’ or “Who knows us?’” How could we possibly think that we, the creation, could keep anything from our all-seeing, all-knowing Creator? And really, why would we want to? Not only does He see the sin, He sees the shame and regret with which we suffer and our futile attempts to break free from bondage. Psalm 69:18-19 says “Oh draw near to my soul and redeem it; ransom me because of my enemies! You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor; all my adversaries are before You.” God does not look heartlessly upon our desperation—He knows we can do nothing to save ourselves and offers Himself as our Redeemer.

At first, the woman is more concerned about her physical needs than her spiritual needs. She wants Jesus to give her literal water so that she won’t have to keep coming back to the well and performing her exhausting task. So many people have that exact same reaction to Jesus. They only want Him because they want something from Him—they want healing, they want relief from financial difficulties, they want peace in shattered relationships, but they don’t want to turn their lives over to serving Christ and confronting the sin in their lives. In short, they want the water without the drawer.

But at some point in the conversation, the woman realizes her need for something beyond anything she can supply for herself. We read in verses 25-26, “The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He.’” This is the first time in John’s gospel that Jesus reveals Himself as the Messiah. Of all people, Jesus chooses a Samaritan (shunned by the Jews), a woman (treated poorly by the entire culture), and a disreputable sinner who had lived in disregard of God’s word. He is teaching us that no one is out of reach of God’s grace.

In verse 28, John tells us that “the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city.” The woman had come to the well for one purpose: to draw water from the well and take it back to the city. Yet when she leaves, she doesn’t even remember to take the waterpot with her. Her priorities change entirely. She relinquishes her attempts to fulfill herself with the world, because she has found the source of living water. The Lord says in Jeremiah 2:13, “‘For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.’” So often, we try to repeatedly fill our own leaky buckets, obstinately ignoring the ever-flowing fountain of living water that Jesus provides. But when we accept His invitation to drink, our shame, defeat, and guilt will be washed away, and the water will flow from us to others. The Samaritan didn’t keep Jesus to herself. She went back to her town and told her people about the Messiah she had met. She went to the well for water and she got it—but not the kind she had expected. What are your expectations when you come to Jesus? Do you want just enough of Him to satisfy your immediate needs? He is the spring of living water—why do you keep filling your broken bucket?