The woman at the well and me

I was at a rest home for folks with Alzheimer's and had permission to give my testimony. I was excited. I’d written some notes down, and as I looked them over I knew they were all wrong. (My notes, not the people.) How could I tell these folks what God had done for me in a simple way? One that might touch them at the heart level? Then I recalled the story about the woman at the well. It is a familiar story to many folks and it also represents me really well. Actually, it represents many of us really well.

Imagine with me: Jesus is traveling through Samaria. At a town called Sychar he sits down by a well. It’s about noon; by this time it’s probably hot.  The account says Jesus was tired; weary.  So he sat down and his friends went on into town to get some food. No one is around, all the town’s women have come earlier, in the cool of the morning, to get the days supply of water for their households. Then a woman appears with her jug to collect water. It is not recorded, but it seems that she comes silently and would have likely left silently except that Jesus spoke. He spoke to a woman; a Samaritan woman. He asks her for a drink and this was how the little lady’s spiritual journey began.

It is often in the mundane activities of life that God will find us. Certainly I was not involved in any great thing when God found me. Like the woman at the well I was just “doing life”. Why was she coming at noon time, in the heat of the day, alone? Was it because she was a late riser, or was it because she was being shunned by the rest of the town’s ladies that came in the morning? Some have written that it was shame that was in charge of her schedule. Maybe that was true for her. I know for me it was true; shame was in charge of much of my life. Shame is a hard task master, it does not care if you must labor in the heat of the day. In fact, it takes pleasure in smashing you down.

As the woman began to talk with Jesus, I wonder if she knew what God would do that day? Then Jesus revealed that he knew her personal situation; he asked her to go get her husband; when she told him she had no husband, he revealed that he intimately knew her current circumstances. Like most of us she quickly changed the subject to something more comfortable. So she asked a question about religious customs. Jesus answered, but quickly brought it back to something closer to home.

Whenever I found myself talking with one of Jesus’s ambassadors, I would talk religion because it took the focus off of me. Yet none of this talk ever satisfied my thirst for something more. I knew a deep uneasy feeling that no religious talk, no intellectual discussion, could quench. I was in church. I was religious and like the woman at the well, my life was empty. I drank from the wells, the puddles of the world. I was lost.

Then Jesus got down to business. He told her about the water that He had. Living water! Even as I write it I start to cry because I know the end of the story for the lady. You see, she got that living water. Oh yes, she had come for water that would only satisfy her body, but she left with the water that would satisfy her very soul! Water that would flow up in her, spilling over onto those she met. She left Jesus, and her jug, there at the well and went to tell others about this man who gave her living water. She was compelled by what had happened to her.

Imagine her situation. Even by today’s standards being married 5 times is pretty unusual, and now she’s living with a man. You can bet the locals knew all about her. No wonder she came at noon, by herself, to the well; she had no desire to get harassed or snubbed by the other ladies. She was likely the talk of the town. Her transformation was all the more spectacular because of her history, and when she went into town that day people definitely knew something was up! Because of her testimony many believed on Jesus. He stayed two more days in the town ministering to the folks there; all because of the woman at the well.

I was just like that lady at the well: immoral, lost, and religious. That day Jesus changed her. She did not go to the local bookstore and get a book on self- improvement or schedule the first of her weekly appointments with the local psychiatrist. She met Jesus and He did the rest. I had done my fair share of books and appointments before I met Jesus and got the Living Water. Once God gives a person that Living Water, they cannot shut up. They must share what has happened to them. 

That is why I write this. You see, I can't shut up. Jesus made the way for the Heavenly Father God to touch me through the Holy Spirit, and I’ve been changed! When I met God, He got down to business and I found the Living Water just like the woman at the well did. One day I’m going to meet that woman, and I bet she’ll still be telling the story of her day at the well and what my Jesus did for her. Then I’ll tell her what He did for me and we’ll praise Him together. Hey, I’ve got a wild idea; why don’t you join us? The Living Water is still living; Jesus is still offering His living water to all who will drink. Maybe you’re like I was: lost, immoral and religious. My friend Jesus is calling you. Come to the well!