Well. . .as my husband always
says: “well is a DEEP subject”! Today I
was reading in John 4 about Jesus and His encounter with the woman at the well.
John 4: 6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from
His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her,
"Give Me a drink." 8
For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9 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. 10 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." 11
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? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the
well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?" 13 Jesus answered and said to her,
"Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that
I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will
become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." 15 The woman said to Him, "Sir,
give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."
16 Jesus said to her,
"Go, call your husband, and come here." 17 The woman answered and said, "I have no
husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no
husband,' 18 for you have
had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that
you spoke truly." 19
The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this
mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to
worship."
Most of you have read this story many times and I know it holds
many vantage points. Today I am going to
use it to discuss the deep well of our own “issues”. In this story we see Jesus make an
offer. “Come to Me and I will give you a
wellspring of life”. (Angela’s
paraphrase). The woman is interested and
asks where to get this water. Jesus now
does something interesting; He digs deep into her “well” by asking a personal
question. He knows this woman has an
ongoing issue with the men in her life.
He knows she is not married. He
knows there is an empty well here that needs to be filled with Him. . .the Life
Giving Spirit. The woman responds as
most of us would when confronted with one of our deepest issues. She changes the subject. She shifts from the question He asked and the
offer He presented to a discussion on worship.
He has jut offered her a well of ETERNAL LIFE but she can’t deal with the
conflict, exposure, pain, etc, surrounding her empty well.
Aren’t we all the same way?
We all want the good stuff. We
want life everlasting and world without end, amen. . . But are we willing to
allow the Lord to expose our weak areas, our addictions, our pain, our emptiness? When He brings these things to our attention,
do we change the subject?
I work with clients all the time who have food addictions they
want to cover up with the next diet trend.
They don’t want to “deal” with whatever has caused the addiction in the
first place. (Subject change please, let’s
put a band-aid on that gaping wound and move on to something else.) Nothing in our life can change unless we
answer the hard questions the Lord asks us, whether our empty well is a food
addiction, anger, lust, adultery, etc.
I have the honor of speaking at First Baptist Canyon on November
8th at 6:30pm in the ministry center. The topic will be “Overcoming Food Addiction”
but the principle applies across the board.
Hope to see some of you there.
John 4:10 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."
