Have You Had Enough?

It’s hot. Skin meltingly hot. Twists and turns, around the bends in the road, across the long, hot, dry land.  Alone.  No one to talk to. Not one friend beside her.

Earlier that day, the other women clamor, chat, failing to invite her.  Another morning lost, alone, needy, destitute. Waking dirty.  With a man worse than the ones she’d known before waiting for her back home.  Insisting she go.

And doesn’t she owe him for being there beside her?

An o.k. man, but fearing marriage, and never knowing when He too might leave her.  Barren. No amount of water could get her clean; no friends, deep teachings, no church service, or trying hard erasing what she has done…could undo the feeling of…

Rejection. Neglected. Outcast. Abandoned.

Living in sin, never meeting other people’s expectations. Desperately needing water…as she awakens.  Scuffling feet alone.  Here. This town where seemingly no one could find her.  This one she can’t escape from, but at times feels like she wants to die inside from.

She gets nearer.  She sees Him.  Kinky hair, hooked nose. Approaches too, but looks bold…unlike her. Seemingly clean, bright, alert, intentional.

She dare not look.  The gossip, the town, the rumors on the verge already of stoning her. Head low, face covered, she bends to scoop down and grab the left-over water from the well.

Her heart is hungry. Her life desperate.  Yet His voice calming, soothing, echoing somehow she recognizes deep inside her…“Will you get me a drink”?

Did she know Him prior?  Maybe.  Could she have?

“How can you ask me for a drink?” She proceeds knowing she is not of his kind. He must be joking, making fun, patronizing her the way so many like him had before.

But yet, this one doesn’t turn, doesn’t taunt, doesn’t scold, or scorn, or claim He even wants anything from her. “If you knew the one talking to you, you would have asked me for a drink and I would have given you Living Water.”

A Holy man?  A ruler of a land?  A King perhaps?  But with out a following or jewels, or a parade of people announcing His position?  Very unlikely.

What kind of man is this? Wanting to offer me a gift? 

Gifts aren’t free. She had learned that well. Nothing she had ever been given was without cost or payment.  Why would this man be different?  No, she wouldn’t trust Him. Didn’t believe Him.  This must be a joke. That some strange man would meet her and offer to give her Living Water, simply absurd?  Life abundant has got to be a rumor, something she’d read about, but never truly known or experienced.

This gentle stranger, possibly a lie…maybe even a figment of her imagination.

Yet, she questions almost involuntarily.  “Where do you get this water?” Through her difficult life, she has learned to be resourceful, witty, quick to protect, always fearful, careful to ask questions…especially if it means she could gain something, and wouldn’t have to tread again this path, the one lonely, the one dirty, the one out in the hot, with some strange man left back in her bedroom.

And yet, this gentle one keeps insisting, “Everyone who drinks from this water will never again be thirsty.”

O.k. maybe He is the crazy one?  What is He meaning?

But yet, the thought of a day without cracked lips, stomach aching, the filthiness clinging to her and not letting go, the desperate cry to quench this thirst…something she desperately longed to know.

But then, she wants to run.  Run as fast as she can away. Him softly turning and speaking into her soul.  Him seemingly able to reach where few know, few see, few grasp what she has experienced.

But how?  How could he know my turmoil?  This life that I have hid well?  This aching pain of a husband-less existence, this mockery I am, the rejection I have experienced?  How?  How?

But wait…

“The Messiah. I know the Messiah.  He is coming.” She turns to Him in hope, anticipation, wondering. Looking in his face, with Cinderella like faith, because just maybe…maybe…could it be?

“I am He!”

Her body falls dead, weightless. With those words, the guilt, suffering, fear, loneliness drifts like a flock leaving the tower they’d squatted upon.  Suddenly she feels free, full, known, realized, satisfied in a way she had never known before.  Her mind clean, light, all consuming with This One that knows her name. Her countenance eager, humble, her Spirit loving this one who grips her at the well, making her new in every way.

This one they’d talked about.  Somehow not choosing to come to a King’s palace….but to her.  Oh, this Savior, her Redeemer.

An entire town was converted that day.  Not by an educated theologian.  Not by a schooled temple-dweller, or holy person.  But by a sinner.  A women, no less.  Her testimony slaying the enemy, an eye witness to the God who told her everything she ever did….and yet, still loved her as His own.

And when we meet Him, often we too are weary, thirsty, dirty, longing for more than some small world we are locked within.

Oh that moment we encountering Him, we are different?  We can run, fly, face our accusers without any fear or trepidation?

And I am wonder today friends…

What kind of well are you drinking from? 

• Are you walking long, unbearable distances just to get one small sip of Living Water.
• Are you struggling or striving to work your way to heaven?
• Are you coming with empty containers and taking only what you have been needing, asking for no more than what will help you to get through another hour?

Well, a Messiah waits today friends.  He has His arms full, His love overwhelmingly ready to pour Life quenching water deep into your souls today friends.

We don’t need to sit, locked in our prisons of doubt any longer. Not coming out of our houses, not tip-toeing fearfully to the well of His goodness as doubt climbs up and hinders, or criticized, or disables you from tasting and seeing the fullness of the truth that the Lord is good and His abundance is deep, wide, full, bottom-less in His offerings.

Have you been letting sin or pride paralyze you from going to meet Jesus? Have the lies of the enemy handicapped you from experiencing all that waits at the well He wants to meet you at?

A testimony awaits you today friends.  A testimony of the encounter He wants to have with you, if you will shut off you screens, walk over to His Word, sit and wait for Him to speak to you.

Will you let Him heal your thirsty souls? Will you let Him quench the longing that aches at you creating turmoil?  Will you let Him heal you, erase your past and create for you a new life, tasting the Living Water He has for you?

For nothing good ever grows in dry soil.

And He wants to quench your thirst today friends.  Quench it, so you will be satisfied and will never thirst again.

He is Living Water. The well you have been looking for.

(Linking with Tracy)