The Woman at the Well

I went to our women's retreat this past spring and the theme was "The Woman at the Well." One of my friends wrote about her preparation for this retreat by reading the passage and meditating on it. Something that she got from this time painted a clearer picture for me. I wanted to share it with you.

The story comes from the book of John, Chapter 4:1-26. Jesus was traveling through Samaria and stopped at a well. First of all, for Jesus, a Jew, to be traveling through Samaria was a big deal. The Jews hated the Samaritans because they were essentially "half breeds." Jesus was not only passing through, but stopped at the well and talked to a Samaritan woman there. He asked her for a drink of water. Her response, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" Then Jesus answered, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."


Jesus already knew about this adulterous woman's past, but He wanted to build a relationship with this woman to establish trust, and THEN reveal who He was. Instead of starting off with how He could save her, He asks something of her. He knew how important water was for her to live. They both knew that she needed water on a regular basis to be healthy. That is why Christ used water as an analogy to describe His "living water" which is salvation and life by His Spirit.

Could He be asking us for us to give Him the "water" that we drink to try and sustain life, even our spiritual lives? What are those things, you ask? Whatever we do to survive, to make life work, whether we know God or not. Some things work for a time, but then fail us, so we find something else. You're familiar with this, I'm sure! This was the story with the Samaritan woman. She was an adulterer, and had 5 husbands. It was not working for her, it was not giving her life. I believe the Lord was asking her for those broken relationships, saying, "Give me those things that you try to satisfy your thirst and I will give you what you're REALLY looking for-life, freedom!"

It's amazing, even though I've been a Christian for a long time, I still miss this all the time. Although we only need to receive this "living water" one time, we often need to go back to the well in order for us to hear Jesus asking us for a drink. This reminds us that we already have the "living water," so we don't have to stay stuck in the old ways of quenching our thirst which we just do out of habit. So, I'm asking God, "take me back to the well!"