My Well Encounter

Last night I had the chance to speak to a group of college students who attend College Young Life at the U of O each week. Kirk normally carries the brunt of the speaking, but he invited me to take a night for him, and I figured it might be good for the soul to engage with a group I don't have to bribe to pay attention to me with stickers. My normal crowd has a collective average age of 6. There was also the risk that I would find out these 20 somethings might need the sticker to endure my thoughts as much as the kids, but I was hopeful. Anyways, it was a great opportunity to stop and reflect on what God has accomplished in my heart before preparing to share with anyone else.

Kirk and I would both agree, the first 6 months of marriage have been so hard, and really good. Being newly married has been a giant mirror, reflecting back all of the stuff I always tried to manage or keep hidden. It's a new kind of vulnerability, and I am uncomfortable and so sad with what I'm seeing in myself, and default to frustration and a short temper pretty quickly. But I'm relishing the grace I'm experiencing from Kirk, and the comfort of knowing God promises to finish the work he's started in me. I've been savoring a couple of books that are a perfect storm right now, helping me process where some of my anxiety, fears and frustration come from. I'll share more on these another time, but A Grace Disguised, by Jerry Sittser and Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown have eaten my lunch, in the best kind of way. Add those to the constant gift of God's revelation in his Word, and I'm a hopeful mess.

I was thinking through all of this vulnerability and light bulb moments, and the opportunity I have right now to honestly approach Jesus in new ways, knowing I am loved and asking for help. What a gift. And I immediately thought of the woman at the well in John 4.  She has this seemingly crazy encounter with Jesus, but in reality he's orchestrated this beautiful moment for her to safely acknowledge her brokenness and to consider with hope that things might be different because of Jesus. And I realize, Jesus is orchestrating a "well moment" for me in this season. The following is essentially what I shared with the students last night.

The gist of the story of the woman at the well is this- Jesus is out and about doing ministry, telling and showing people that he is the Messiah, the one they all had heard about, but never really doing it how you would prescribe, instead in his very "Jesus" way. While on the road, he stops at a well outside of a Samaritan town while his friends head into town for some food, and Id' assume it's because he knows about the woman who's about to come his way, that and he's thirsty, God in human form needs water too.

Now I think about the woman, a Samaritan, on a long walk to the well, anticipating and even longer walk back in the sun with full pots, and as she approaches the well she sees a Jewish man sitting there, like he's waiting. I would immediately be on guard, and it appears she is as well.

When she arrives as the well he asks her for water, and she immediately finds herself uncomfortable and in a bizarre encounter with a stranger. She responds, on the defensive, and asks why he, a Jewish man, would talk to her a Samaritan woman, Jews and Samaritans aren't friend. He replies in the oddest way which I'm sure heightens her ill at ease, saying that if she knew who she was speaking with she would actually be asking him for water, eternal,life giving water. I imagine her nervously laughing as she tries to distance herself by mockingly asking how we would go about getting that water, he obviously doesn't have the tools, does he think he's a big enough deal to just make that happen? She doesn't get it. And Jesus is patient.

He takes another approach at drawing her into this conversation. He points to the well again and says that whoever drinks that water from that well, will find themselves thirsty again,  but that water he offers is a spring welling up into eternal life. She seems to miss the eternal life part at first, and jumps to the practical, thinking it would be pretty great to never have to haul water again. She doesn't get it and Jesus is honest.

He takes yet another approach to helping her understand this deeper meaning. He asks her to go and get her husband and she tells him she has no husband. He responds in agreement, and goes on to tell her that he knows she's had 5 husbands and the man she's with now isn't one of them. Based on her reaction, I'm imagining the color has run from her face, and I'm also guessing that she's managed to keep some of this a secret, because she immediately thinks Jesus is some kind of prophet. But she doesn't get angry or run in response to this new found vulnerability, she wants to know more. And it's here that I realize that Jesus is kind.

Just before this whole scene takes place, Jesus in his own words tells those listening that "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" John 3:17. This woman didn't need her sin rubbed in her face, or punishment. My guess is her day to day life was filled with enough shame, regret, self flagellation and hopelessness.

She did however need to recognize that she was broken.

This all reminded me of Jeremiah 2:13 where the old testament prophet shares the heart of God with the people when he says "for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." We were made to live off that pure clean, eternal water from God, but each of us has chosen to reject God and instead we drink out of broken cisterns. In my mind the visual is something like getting water out of the toilet tank after a natural disaster or something. Gross I know, but a broken cistern is nothing more than a cracked pot full of stagnant water.

So then I take that metaphor back to the woman at the well. Jesus revealed her brokenness, that she's trying to find joy, hope, love, worth, peace and so much more in harmful people and toxic relationships. Her pattern with men is a broken cistern she continues to return to for water, but what she finds is stagnant, rotten and filthy.

Then I look at my own life. Jesus has set up a "well moment" for me. He's patiently, honestly and kindly showed me that my constant attempts to do everything right, please everyone, control every situation, avoid pain at all costs and so much more, basically this pattern of trying to be my own savior, it's broken. I'm hurting myself, I'm hurting those around me, and I'm living in my own little prison. He calls me to a life of freedom and joy, of hope in the knowledge that I have a savior that gives me an eternal life, and that my life on Earth is so much more than "getting things right". I am called away from the stagnant water in my broken cisterns, and invited to rest and live along side and find refreshment from a pure mountain lake. I am learning to choose to live out of the well spring of God, and the peace I find there is so incredibly satisfying.

I hiked up to Green Lakes at the base of the South Sister one summer when I craved rest. My soul found it and God gave me such a sweet picture of what it means that he offers a pure, spring of life. He gives rest, he gives peace and he gives life.