In Samaria Jesus came to the town called Sychar, which is near the field Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his long trip, so he sat down beside the well. It was about twelve o’clock noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to the well to get some water, Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” (This happened while Jesus’ followers were in town buying some food.)
The woman said, “I am surprised that you ask me for a drink, since you are a Jewish man and I am a Samaritan woman.” (Jewish people are not friends with Samaritans.)
Jesus said, “If you only knew the free gift of God and who it is that is asking you for water, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
The woman said, “Sir, where will you get this living water? The well is very deep, and you have nothing to get water with. Are you greater than Jacob, our father, who gave us this well and drank from it himself along with his sons and flocks?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give will never be thirsty. The water I give will become a spring of water gushing up inside that person, giving eternal life.”
(John 4:5-14, NCV)
“Jesus said to her…”
Jesus often begins His work in us by asking us for something. It’s never something He needs, but it is always something very important to us, and something symbolic of our lives. It might be that He asks us to give up a certain part of our lifestyle – say, for instance, a style of music we enjoy, or drinking, or any number of seemingly insignificant things that God chooses to ask us to put on the altar.
“I am surprised…”
We then have a tendency to be surprised that God would ask that from us, for any number of reasons. This woman had her set of reasons, and we have ours. Hers had to do with what was “normal”, what was acceptable according to the culture she lived in. And what Jesus asked from her was definitely out of the ordinary and seemed contrary to every social rule in the book.
“If only you knew…”
Jesus, of course, completely overlooks her excuses and jumps right to the heart of the matter. The point in His asking for a drink was not to get a drink. It was to open her heart so that He could begin to work. He asked her for something, so that He could have an open heart to offer His free gifts to.
When God asks something of you, don’t think little of it no matter how trivial it seems to you. This woman’s life revolved around her water pot. It was the middle of the day when she met Jesus; no woman in her right mind would be out getting water from the well at that hour, in the hottest part of the day, unless she was trying to avoid the other women. Which this woman was, because of her sinful lifestyle. The very fact Jesus ran into this specific woman at that specific well in that specific hour means that He was meeting her in the most humiliating moment of her life. Her vulnerable spot. The place of her weakness. Of her failing. And asking her for water highlighted that.
Whatever God asks from you, there is probably a deeper meaning to it than what meets the eye. Only by saying, “Yes, Lord,” do we find out what that is.
“Sir, where…?”
The woman’s mind was still thinking naturally. We have such a tendency to get hung up on the natural aspect of whatever God is doing in our lives, when it is never the point of God speaking to us. He uses the natural to speak to us about the spiritual. But we start trying to make sense of the natural aspect so much so that we completely miss the spiritual part of God’s work. The Samaritan woman was beginning to understand that Jesus was talking about something supernatural, but she was trying to make it congruent with her natural life.
When God asks something of us, and we give it to Him, and He in turn offers us something, it simply will not make sense to our natural mind. There is no way it will be possible without the supernatural intervening. And that’s the whole point: that we surrender what is natural, so that God can replace it with something supernatural.
“The water I give…”
Jesus brings this woman to a point of realizing her need for Him. He draws a distinct line between what she thinks He’s saying, and what He’s actually saying. In essence He is saying, “Whoever tries to make this natural water all that they need will only end up thirsty again. But whoever comes to Me to drink of the spiritual water I offer will not only never be thirsty again, but will also have eternal life to enjoy.” He makes it clear He’s talking about something inside (water gushing up inside that person), something that only He can give.
Jesus is so gentle in leading His sometimes very clueless sheep. Asking something from us in the natural can seem like such a sore trial, but He never does it just for the sake of depriving us or inconveniencing us. We may feel deprived or inconvenienced, but that is not His goal. His goal is to loosen our heart’s grip on something natural so that He can come in and replace it with a spiritual gift He has waiting. Often, there is no room in our hearts for the things He wants to put into our lives because we are so enamored with something else. It may not even be a bad thing, but it becomes a roadblock in allowing Him to work in us.
Surrender is always best. Always, always, always. Letting go of whatever we hold close, and letting Him show us the real work He wants to accomplish in us.
