I've been reading the Bible passage about the Women at the well and Jesus transforming interaction with her and her town.
This passage grips me. I read it daily for a week, I try to read something else, I return, I cry each time. The account is deeply moving. Jesus, tired from traveling, sits at a well one evening. A woman comes to draw water. Their conversation is breathtakingly beautiful.
She's an outcast. So is He.
She knows a religion. A religion He's beginning to deconstruct.
She can see with her eyes, but not her heart. He sees everything.
She has made choices that damage. He is her healer.
She pulls the race card. He blows it all away.
She's honest. So is He.
She's reserving judgement on His claims. He is patient with her unbelief.
She is thirsty. He has living water.
All of these, and more, are speaking to my heart. A woman that I never saw as someone I could learn from, is teaching me much. I'm not a woman who's divorced 5 times, nor am I an outcast in a small town. But, like her, I too plant myself firmly in man-made ways and miss the fresh work of God that is stirring right in front of me.
God was in front of her. He was face to face with her. He spoke life to her. But she was too distracted with cultural expectations to SEE anything else, even the Messiah. This woman must have been greatly damaged by her community's unloving ways.
Too fragile to boldly proclaim God's arrival in her town.
Too broken to know acceptance.
Too trampled on to have her testimony believed.
Too scorned to be vulnerable with her Redeemer.
I am seeing her with fresh eyes. My heart breaks for her story. I am learning lots about seeing and listening for God in all of my day. And I am learning about letting go of religious ways and embracing the abiding presence of Christ.
