When I was a kid, my parents had a rule that I was not allowed to call guys. Considered provincial back then, the rule seems positively antiquated according to current societal norms. While I am not new to youth culture, I am increasingly perplexed and concerned at the level of aggressiveness I see in young women today. Because they’re desperate to belong to someone, young women feel little reservation in approaching or befriending guys of whom they know little. But loneliness can sometimes be experienced even in relationship.
The well-known story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well reminds us that His omniscience doesn’t diminish His love for us—it deepens it. While we don’t know her upbringing, we know that the woman lived in a society where her sense of identity, value, and provision came from her connection to a male (either through marriage or motherhood). Sadly, this woman had been married not just once but five times and had grown desperate enough simply to cohabitate with a man (John 4:17-18). Five marriages and a relationship of cohabitation had left her only more alone.
Knowing us more fully than we know ourselves, Jesus went to the root issues in her life. He understood that she needed to know that she could be known in all of her failings and still be loved (Romans 5:8). But He also addressed her man-made attempts to find satisfaction. To find restoration, she had to see the truth of where her decisions had brought her—moving from man to man, desperate to belong to someone.
She could have mouthed many excuses for delaying a decision; she could have tried to justify what she had done. But having encountered Jesus, she now had a choice—water from her well or Jesus’ living water.
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: 2 Peter 1:2-21
More:
Read Isaiah 54:1-6, 11-17 to see God’s vivid promise of bringing His strength, provision, and beauty into our lives.
Next:
When have you settled for less than God’s best out of fear of missing out on something? How will you go deeper into God’s well of provision today?
Doug on December 24, 2011 at 7:04 am
While many have used this to claim the woman was little more than a whore, I’ve often wondered…
What if she was a widow five times over (let’s face it the state of medicine in that ear was pitiful at best) and finally having been hurt that many times was afraid to make a commitment of marriage one more time.
And what does it say of her that she is so desperate to “belong” to a man. Were their no children from any marriage and therefore no “social security” for her old age? Was she barren and therefore considered “cursed” which would have made her lucky to even have had a second husband? Is her current cohabitation situation an act of desperation to be sure she at least has a place other than the streets to live?
The what ifs of her life are endless, but yet all point to the same end….
In Christ, the one who knows better than we know ourselves, the one who loves us even when no one, not even we ourselves, who sees not Jew, Samaritan, Gentile but only “my child”, freely gives salvation to all who believe.