What areas of your life will you be uncomfortable with if I asked you to tell me about it?
The Samaritan woman found herself in a conversation she termed “personal”.
As we’ve seen so far, she’s been in a discussion with Jesus – the Jewish stranger man she met by the well.
He’s talked so much about this living water He can give her, that will fully satisfy her.
“Good deal!” This woman thought.
And in verse 15 of our text (John 4), “The woman said unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”
Like we point in the earlier series, everyone is thirsty and needs a kind of water that is abundant and constant. This woman just expressed it. I don’t want to come hither to draw next time I’m thirsty. It will save me from the stress, and even from the shame of walking to this well alone.
Levels Of Thirst
Looking at the life of man, you’ll find three levels of thirst. Everyone experiences this:
Physical thirst – the need to drink water, eat food, and have other material necessities of life.
Emotional thirst – the need for relationships: Family, friendships, and intimate relationship with a partner. This Samaritan woman was emotionally thirsty too. Like we see soon, she’s had five (5) husbands… Who knows what led to the multiplied numbers. Maybe she meets one, and after a while, there’s a disconnect. She gets thirsty again… She walks away, or the man kicks her out. Then she hooks up with another. Talking of friendship, how many girlfriends did she have? No mention of any. She’s alone at the well.
Spiritual thirst: As we’ll see later, this woman knows some things about going to the mountain to worship. Maybe her parents took her there. But like we see with lots of young women today who have been “churched”, she doesn’t know what true worship is. She hadn’t found God. So religion didn’t even satisfy her.
Jesus needed to move her from the physical level of thirst, which she thinks He’s been talking about all along to the deeper thirst she felt – emotional and spiritual.
Journey To A Deeper Level
“Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.”
“What! No, this is a really sensitive part,” she must have thought.
But Jesus needs to go to the root of her thirst. The deepest level of thirst. Healing comes before wholeness.
And like T.D. Jakes said his mother told him: Things that are covered don’t heal well.
This woman needs to open up. But she did what most people do today. She told a half-truth. “Let me just give him a dry answer and divert into something else. So she said, “I have no husband.“
“Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not the husband: in that saidst thou truly.” (John 4:17-18)
Whoops! I guess she started sweating.
Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth
We can hide uncomfortable details about our lives from others, but we can’t hide them from God. Those details are exactly what God wants to talk with us about – to lead us to confession, to brokenness and healing.
Jesus knows. He knows the past. He knows the secret things.
The messages you exchange on WhatsApp, Facebook…, The discussions you have over the phone, what you do with your hands when you’re all alone, the lie you told yesterday, the abuse during childhood you hid from everyone, the things you watch on your phone, the immoral relationship with that guy, the friendship you have with that married man that goes deeper and deeper…
The hurt. The problem at home. Your secret tears. Your fears.
He wants you to pull off the shades. He wants you to stop running and turning your backs on those problems. He wants you to confess them to Him.
You know, running from problems never solves the problem. They keep following you like your shadows. You need to turn, face it, and say “enough is enough.”
Because, even if you keep hiding them today, a day will come when you close your eyes in death… And it’s all been said and done. God will display the film of your life for all to see. No hiding place then.
“I’m changing this topic!” She did what people do when they want to evade truth. “… Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.”
Knowing Jesus More
Anyway, although the tried to run from truth, the good news is, she was moving closer and closer to KNOWing who this Man is. First she called Him a Jewish man. Then addressed Him as “Sir.” Now, a prophet.
When you tarry in communion with God, you get to know Him better and better. The things you didn’t understand previously, His Spirit reveals them to you. Don’t be in a hurry to run out of God’s presence. Like Jesus told the disciples, “tarry ye in Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high.”
Tarry in the study of God’s word. Tarry in prayers. Your life won’t remain the same.
Thank God she didn’t run off at this point. There was one more discourse, another subject, that finally turned on the light bulb.
It will turn on the light bulb in your life too.
We’ll discuss it in the next post.
Reflection:
What areas of your life will you be uncomfortable with if I asked you to tell me about? (I asked this in the opening sentence. Now you know why you need to let it out.) Tell it to Jesus and ask to cleanse, heal and make you whole.