What Do You Think You Are Doing?

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" (John 4:27 NRSV)

I want to explore a little more that may possibly have been going on in the minds of the disciples when they came walking up the trail from town with some food and observed from a distance the intense interaction going on between Jesus and this foreign lady who seemed to not be a most reliable person due to her unusual timing for drawing water. I want to view some of the facts that would have been likely obvious in the minds of these men and that would have contributed to the necessity of recording the things found in this verse.

First of all, Jesus was a rather young man unmarried and in His early thirties, and they had left Him alone at a well while they went shopping. They were in an area where all the people living around there were considered lest than honorable, even suspicious by most Jews. These men may have been even rather hesitant to leave Jesus alone there but decided that since He was their teacher and leader that they should be able to trust Him to not get into trouble. All of these men were quite young in age and so all of the natural emotions and urges of young men in general would have been likely present in their feelings when faced with attractive women. I know this is not usually talked about in connection with this story, but it may be difficult to really understand this verse if this part of the scene is not taken into consideration.

While it may not be provable, I rather imagine that since this woman had been married five times that she was no unattractive woman. There are some women that just have a certain charisma about them both physically and emotionally that can really grab the attention of the average male. These are often the ones that have difficulty staying in an intimate relationship long-term and often feel unsatisfied, looking for love and fulfillment in one relationship after another with great intensity but after awhile realizing that they cannot find a man that can really satisfy their deepest cravings. It is likely, at least in my mind, that this woman may well have been something like one of those. She had an atmosphere about her that would cause many men to instantly label her as dangerous because of the ability that she had to attract men's attention to herself so easily.

By this time in her life this woman had likely been through so many painful broken relationships for various reasons that she may have come to believe that no man could ever be trusted with her heart again. She would have developed a thick shell of cynicism about men in general to protect her deeply wounded heart from as much further attack as possible by those around her who often seemed ready to remind her of her failed past. It may have been evident to nearly everyone that this woman simply could not settle down, could not properly fill the role of a dutiful wife who was willing to stay in her place and not keep looking for something that was not meant to be for her.

She may have been considered a loose cannon of sorts that her community by this time had chosen to marginalize from mainstream society. At this point in her life she had settled for living in a loose relationship with a man without bothering with the formality of getting married. Why should she after all? Every other marriage had fallen apart for one reason or another and maybe it was just safer for her heart to remain detached in that respect. But still she could not stand living alone and so she found someone willing to live in a relationship of convenience or maybe as an adjun ct to a current wife and just put up with all the gossip and disdain that would surly be produced by such a choice.

At least some of this pain and shame would have been difficult to miss just by looking at her and observing her demeanor. She was not the sort of lady one would want to be found hanging out with very long and certainly not alone. Every decent respectable person would have assumed that any man of good moral character could see what was rather obvious to everyone else and would keep a safe distance from such a woman to avoid becoming contaminated by her reputation. This should not need to be explained to anyone; it would have simply been the obvious social expectation that everyone would assume any man should just understand and with which he would comply.

So when the disciples came walking back from town and noticed from a distance that Jesus was engaged in very serious and intense conversation with a woman of this caliber, there very well may have been raised serious questions in their minds about His ability to discern character and His willingness to protect His own reputation with others. His choice to even have any words at all with a woman in public period was against social norms, but to have an extended and intense personal conversation with a woman of this class was absolutely insane – even political and religious suicide in some people's opinions. Because of this there was immediately an issue of trust raised in the hearts of these young men, some of whom may likely have still been teenagers themselves. What in the world was Jesus thinking after all, getting tangled up with such a questionable character out in the country all alone with a woman like this? Why didn't He just do what any other reasonable, self-respecting man would have done and turned His back toward her until she had finished her business and left?

The questions raised in this verse seem to strongly indicate things someone would have felt compelled to say to a man who was evidently oblivious to the fact that He was way out of line with social and moral norms. These are the kinds of comments that would be addressed to reprimand someone who had overstepped proper boundaries and needed to be checked before they got themselves into too much trouble. This verse seems to indicate an incensed frustration and even shock that a young man who claimed to be a representative of God on earth would allow Himself to be so compromised and come so close to ruining His reputation, especially so soon after just launching His career as a respected teacher and leader in society. In their minds Jesus was in serious danger of blowing His chances of being accepted by His people if He allowed Himself to make such major social blunders and become associated with such questionable characters in the minds of the public.

Maybe their teacher was in need of some correction and guidance Himself. Maybe He was too naïve to realize the far-reaching consequences of hanging out with such people that could seriously tarnish His reputation. Maybe His idealism and emotions and unusual ways of relating to people needed to be checked and He needed some stern reminders of what proper and upright young men should act like around women of questionable reputation.

But whatever they were thinking – and this verse makes quite clear that they were indeed thinking along these lines – they chose to restrain their astonishment and dismay at the compromising situation Jesus was gotten Himself into and risk letting Him make some potential blunders without interfering in His personal choices. They decided to give Him a little more space and maybe deal with this issue later when things had cooled down a bit and reason might again take control.

It is hard to tell from the context whether both of these questions if verbalized would have been intended for Jesus alone or whether the first question might have been directed toward the woman. Either way, it seems clear from the context that the disciples were shocked and confused and concerned by the compromising situation that they found their master in upon their return and felt compelled to question His motives and apparently poor choices socially. They did not really know Jesus all that well yet at this early point in their relationship with Him and so they chose to see how this might play out without their input. They may have thought that at least they had shown up just in time to slow down whatever was going on between Jesus and this woman before things got completely out of hand. Maybe that would be enough to bring Jesus back into line and give Him some time to get His emotions back under control and realize how close He had come to falling into serious trouble. Maybe it was providential that they had come along just in the nick of time to keep Him from making the mistake of a lifetime before He had even gotten started in His budding career as an aspiring leader in Israel.

I realize that this is not typically what people talk about when they read this story. But I can't help but see all of this lurking behind these statements and going on inside the disciple's heads if this verse actually says what it appears to be saying. It is often too easy to gloss over many things in the Bible that give us clues to things that we would rather not think about that makes the stories very messy more than they already appear. But God ways are not our ways and the disciples were beginning to find that out quite clearly even here in this early story in their relationship to Jesus.

Appealing to Authority

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." (John 4:25)

I wonder why this woman suddenly made this statement at this point in the conversation. Jesus was sharing with her heart and mind some of the most profound truths and insights ever given to humanity and she was feeling the impact of these deep in her soul as He was speaking. Yet it did not seem to be enough that the things He was sharing with her had the clarion ring of truth and that His presence clearly exuded the love and healing that her heart craved and was already beginning to experience.

For some reason she felt compelled to almost discount what He was saying to her on the basis of a lack of proper title or authority. It was almost as if she were saying that until the right One came who would be duly authorized to speak on God's behalf, until it was clear that the one declaring new truths was clearly the Messiah promised in the Scriptures, that no matter how profound someone's teachings might be they simply could not be trusted completely. Only the recognized, authorized Messiah would have the credibility to teach new truths, to speak on behalf of God, to make such radical claims that would challenge the status quo before people could feel safe to believe Him.

In a way it almost seems like an excuse for unbelief in some respects. I am not trying to imply that she was mired in unbelief like nearly everyone else that Jesus dealt with, but there does seem to be some indications that she was struggling with the tension between hope and fear, between trust and unbelief. Clearly all throughout this conversation she tended to jump off the line of thought as soon as it became too uncomfortable. At times she would engage and take some bait offered to her by Jesus but then when it started to become obvious that there might be accountability involved she would change direction.

Yet through all of this Jesus did not chide her or fault her for her discomfort with what He was revealing to her. Though He made it clear that He knew much more about what was inside of her than she wanted Him to know, He did not force her to face her fears or expose her; He simply moved with the changes of direction and kept offering her more. Jesus was focused on revealing the goodness of God rather than on getting people to get their act together first as we tend to do. And though she, like so many others, tended to feel resistant and cautious about believing such wonderful things that sounded too good to be true, Jesus knew that deep in her heart was a longing for God that would supersede all her fears and would respond to love when she encountered the real thing.

But I still find it helpful to flush out some of the fears and hesitations that she had in order to better identify with her in my own experience and in understanding other people better. Jesus' way of dealing with this woman is a very important example for me to study to understand how Jesus through me can reach similar people who are hurting, full of fear and making excuse after excuse for not moving forward. Jesus dealt so tactfully with each resistant step this woman needed to take to discover the joy of the gospel. I too find many places of resistance inside of myself and I see similar symptoms of resistance in others I talk to. I want to better understand how God relates to our resistance and the best ways to move past them so we can enjoy the wonder and joy of experiencing the real gospel in our own lives.

First this woman started out with the assumptions of prejudice between men and women and also between Samaritans and Jews. Jesus brushed right past that one by simply demonstrating with His demeanor and kindness that He had no part in such silly, futile thinking. She seemed to accept His unspoken answer on that issue and immediately became fascinated with His offer of living water.

Jesus also seemed to engage this woman with enough interesting details to keep her guessing so that He could continue to hold her in conversation long enough to begin forming a useful bond with her. He did not jump right to the profound but only shared small details or requests to get her feedback and interaction. I could certainly learn a great deal from just that one thing in this story. Jesus kept saying things, throwing things out that were very tantalizing, that aroused intense curiosity, that invited questions, that made the woman begin to think for herself and would then prod her to think much deeper than she might typically do.

Very quickly He tapped into the issue of identity. He did not start out by making claims of who He really was and why He was here in this world. He carefully followed a path of thought that allowed this woman to decide how far she would be willing to go to discover His real identity. She might have become too uncomfortable at any point and turned away from finishing the conversation. In fact, at the end she sort of did that very thing in her possible discomfort at the approach of the disciples. But also by that time she was experiencing so much excitement that she couldn't take much more until she unloaded some of it on others.

But as I look at it I see that this whole conversation really revolved around the issue of identity in two parallel ways. Jesus was slowly giving this woman compelling clues about who He might be and at the same time she was being challenged from the very start to reevaluate her own identity and abilities and her own relationship to her community. Previous to this conversation I don't think she would have felt motivated at all to run around her town talking to all the men excitedly about the coming Messiah. Before this she had no compelling things to say about Messiah or anything else in religion more than what most other people already knew. Her current sense of identity had been largely shaped by what others had said about her, by the condemnation she felt from most of the people who knew her and her own feelings from her previous marriages.

Jesus was challenging her assumptions both about His identity and her evaluation of who she was at the same time. She was familiar with many of the ways in which we assume identities for ourselves and others and typical beliefs about the issue of who has the authority to make such determinations. Society on this earth has very powerful and oppressive ways of imposing false ideas about value and identity that are highly effective in perpetuating lies about both ourselves and about God. Jesus came to challenge this whole setup and to reveal that God is strikingly different than we usually think He is and that we are far more valuable than we ever thought possible.

In her mind the issue of authority was deeply ingrained as the dominant issue that had to faced before one could believe much of anything. No matter how compelling or exciting something might be, if that person was not a recognized authority in their field, then anything they might say would carry very little weight no matter how profound it might seem. She brought this issue up in her question about Jesus compared to her ancestor Jacob and the recognition of his authority in the minds of her religious leaders. But interestingly Jesus did not even offer an answer that question at all but simply kept bringing her more intriguing statements to keep her thinking and wondering and interacting with Him.

After Jesus' revealing comment about her marital situation she was ready to cede that He might possibly have the credibility of a prophet. She was beginning to acknowledge that He might be worthy of being recognized as possibly having that much authority based on His ability to perceive things not normally known by strangers. But as far as her own identity was concerned she was still not prepared to allow the conversation to get that uncomfortable so she pushed in a different direction to avoid dealing with her painful misconceptions about her own value based on her past.

This issue of value and identity in relation to her marital status was far more significant in her society than we can usually comprehend. Women were almost always viewed almost exclusively in relationship to the identity of the men they were married to with very little regard for who they were themselves. Their worth was measured primarily on how well they kept their husband happy and satisfied and what he thought about them, not on their own value apart from him. All women were expected to find a husband and to serve him without question or resistance. Failure to do this was to bring on the woman enormous and life-long shame which would cause her to feel very worthless.

So when Jesus pointed out the fact that she had been married five times and was now living with a sixth man unmarried, He was touching the most sensitive area of her life directly connected to her sense of identity and value both in her own mind and in the culture of those around her. Everyone in any position of authority at all had likely already denounced her as a loose woman, a failure, a menace to society even and a person who had no hope of ever becoming a respected member of the community again. She was considered hopeless and dangerous and was marginalized by nearly everyone she knew. This was why she was drawing water at a most inconvenient time of the day in order to avoid the harsh treatment of other women who would come at more normal times to get water for their families.

But she was still wired to think along the same lines of religion as most others around her. She, like everyone else, was conditioned to accept the opinions of those in authority and to embrace their words as the truth. People not in authority were not supposed to try to figure things out for themselves, they were simply supposed to listen and go along with whatever those above them decided was truth. It was a very hierarchal society but not unlike what is still very much in place today in many respects. Only those with the proper training and credentials were considered to be capable of determining what was true and what was right or wrong. Their decisions and expostulations were considered to be more accurate than the thoughts of the common person or especially the ideas of someone at the bottom of society like this woman represented. If anyone had any authority at all this woman was the furtherest from having any.

Living in a strictly rigid society that put so much emphasis on authority, this woman was feeling a lot of discomfort listening to such amazing and compelling ideas from a complete stranger. She may have even felt guilty to some extent for allowing herself to get so involved in such a conversation that would have been soundly condemned by her religious leaders for many reasons. Yet something about this man was so magnetic, so affirming, so touching in the deepest places of her soul that no one had ever affected before that she couldn't pull herself away. But at this point in the conversation when she was beginning to realize that this person was taking her where no one had dared go before in areas of life and religion, she may have felt compelled by her cultural upbringing to raise the issue of only getting information from the right authority.

Since there was no history of what a Messiah would be like or what He would do in particular, there was no clear definition of how people should recognize Him when He should come. There was certainly a great deal speculation and grand expostulations about what the Messiah was presumed to be coming to do, but even in this there was not much agreement, especially between the Jews and the Samaritans. So to appeal to the authority of the Messiah was like a wild shot in the dark in a way. It might have been her way of going over the heads of everyone presently asserting authority in religious and even civil affairs and appealing to God Himself to sort out all the confusing issues that kept people from experiencing life harmoniously. Many people were putting their hopes in the authority of the coming Messiah for very many different reasons. This woman was one of those who was hoping that the Messiah might help bring healing where the real problems existed, both internally and also for cleaning up the mess that culture and generations of mistakes had created.

So, why did this woman appeal to the authority of the coming Messiah before she was willing to embrace the wonderful things Jesus was saying to her? All of the above reasons may have played into this choice. When something sounds too good to be true and yet it is so compelling that we just can't pull our minds and hearts away from it, the issue of proper authority and accountability is usually the issue that always comes up first. What do those with more experience have to say about this? What do our leaders, teachers, politicians, elders have to counsel us in this regard? We are supposed to submit to those in authority over us so we have to get their opinion before we can make any decision ourself.

Wow! That line of reasoning is scary even as I read it myself. How many times have we missed out on incredible things God is eager to share with us because we insist on giving more credence to the “experts” and those in authority than in listening to God Himself. I am not saying there is no place for authority, but I am saying that this issue is so abused and misunderstood that it sometimes becomes an excuse to avoid embracing truth as much as it is a check to keep us from becoming deluded. I believe that we need to have a much better understanding of how to properly relate to authority and still be ready to defer to the authority of the Messiah and obey God above the demands of all other earthly authorities. Of course the critical issue in this is when to know when the two are in conflict.

Fortunately this appeal to authority by this woman actually turned out to be beneficial to her by the direct revelation of Jesus that He was the very one that she was appealing to. To her shock and amazed joy she discovered that the very coming Messiah in whom she had placed all her hopes for many years when everyone else had failed her had come to meet with her personally. Of course it still remained an issue of faith whether she would believe His assertion that He was indeed the Messiah without any corroborating support from other religious authorities. But she accepted His claim, not based on credentials or endorsements from anyone else but by the reality and confirmation of what His presence and words were already doing deep in her heart and soul.

Declare All Things

Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) (John 4:9)

"You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" (v. 12)

The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. (v. 19)

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." (v. 25-26)

As I put these verses together it becomes very obvious the quick progression of awareness this woman has of the true identity of the person she is talking to. First she sees him only as a man and a Jew who is acting quite out of character for a Jew or a man in their culture. Then almost immediately she begins to suspect that this man might be greater and more important that she first thought. Next she declares that she believes that He is a prophet which is quite a bold statement for someone to make. But to her astonishment she is not left to stop there even with that wild of a guess. She is challenged to go yet another step and be confronted with the most ultimate claim a person could ever believe – that this man before her is nothing less that the great God of the universe Himself, the Messiah sent to earth to save people from sin and evil and destruction.

I wonder what she might have said if the disciples had not shown up just at that moment. It seems rather clear to me that she immediately felt rather intimidated again once these men of seemingly dull understanding and still bearing an obvious amount of prejudice suddenly intruded on their intimate conversation. She no longer felt free to continue her compelling dialogue with Jesus, but by that time she had enough information and inspiration to send her racing back to her own town to unleash a surprise attack of compelling news that she felt sure would induce others to want to meet this man for themselves.

But if she had just had a little more time alone with Jesus I still wonder what she might have expressed. Maybe she would have repeated her previous statement with more revision. “I perceive now that you are indeed more than a prophet – you are the Messiah that we have been waiting for for so long.” And what more she might have said could have been quite interesting if she had just been given the chance. But of course, that was not to be given the sudden shift in mood and atmosphere caused by the appearance of the other men who were clueless about what was going on.

But there is another interesting thing I notice here. When Jesus shared with her His awareness of her marital situation much to her astonishment and embarrassment, later on this very issue became the central theme of her own evangelistic effort back in town with those who knew her all too well. It had also been the turning point that caused her to advance her own perception of Jesus' identity from just a prejudiced male Jew to that of a prophet.

But Jesus wanted to take her much further. He had offered her living water and she was already beginning to drink of it. Then as she responded positively in that experience she was thrilled to hear His amazing words about real religion, how God was not prejudiced like all the religious people she knew and that God might actually care about her just as passionately as He cared about anyone else on earth. This was indeed very thrilling to her soul and she was already beginning to feel the healing and life and refreshment as she absorbed more living water from this amazing man.

But Jesus still wants to take her to the ultimate destination in her faith. He sees that she is possibly the most open-minded and receptive person He has ever met yet up to this point which allows Him to share with her things that He cannot yet share with anyone else because of their unbelief and narrow-mindedness. He is permitted to introduce Himself to her as the very Messiah that she has just described to Him in her own words and from her own perception.

I find it interesting that she describes the Messiah as a person whom she expects to declare all things to people when He shows up. What did she mean by this statement? What does it mean to declare all things? And what was it about Jesus that suddenly struck her as fitting that description exactly much to her overwhelmed amazement and excitement?

Evidently the words of Jesus that showed that He knew her background and her life had not only caught her off guard at first but also served to confirm for her the truth of His identity at the end of this conversation. It suddenly struck her that her own predictions about what the Messiah would do had just happened to her personally and she had overlooked it up to this point. What had initially been her cause of fear, shame and embarrassment was transformed to become the very evidence that could confirm in her own heart the truth about the claim of this man sitting before her. She had just said that the Messiah would declare all things when He came and she suddenly realized with a jolt that Jesus had done just that already. It was her moment of truth, her epiphany that transformed her life from a marginalized woman afraid to be around other people in her community to a compelling evangelist that couldn't keep quiet if she tried.

This story has far more truth and insights into the nature of God and His relationships with us than is seen on the surface description. So much more was going on in this conversation than just the words being spoken. Hearts were communicating with each other, spirits were being informed and were interacting and changing, thoughts and emotions were racing in a whirl and everything from this woman's whole life experience suddenly coalesced together to make perfect sense and bring her intense joy. The immediate reaction of this woman and the subsequent effects of her testimony is not seen very often and is evidence of a far deeper encounter with God than the simple words recorded here in Scripture might convey.

As I sat down here this morning to meet with God again I told Him that I want much more than to just learn fascinating information about this story. I am hungry to experience myself what this woman experienced; I want to have my own dramatic conversion encounter with a personal Messiah; I want to have my own heart supercharged with an infusion of the very passion of the God who loves me and gave His life for me to love Him in return. I want much, much more than a correct intellectual understanding of the Bible as important as that is; I want the healing and transformation that will take over my whole life and turn me into what others might view as a raving fanatic sharing the kind of love that makes little to no sense to those who have never tasted it. I want to become drunk with this living water and the wine of the Holy Ghost. God, hear my heart's desire and come to meet me where I am just as You found this woman where she was.

I Am He

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." (John 4:25-26)

Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." (John 4:26 NRSV)

There is something in here that can be easy to miss but that is profoundly important. The whole conversation at this point is coming to a climax, to the focal point of the very reason that Jesus began talking with this woman to start with. Jesus loved this woman and had been led into this very circumstance by the Holy Spirit so that she could personally encounter the very Messiah that she had put her hopes in for so long.

I find it rather fascinating that this Samaritan woman expressed such faith in the coming Messiah that usually is thought of as primarily a hope of the Jewish people. But even though her ethnic background was scorned by nearly every Jew she may have come in contact with, she still had chosen to cherish a personal hope that the Messiah would come to benefit her irregardless of her heritage, background or condition. And because of this faith deep inside her heart, God granted her the wonderful privilege of being able to have an intimate conversation with the Son of God alone. That is simply astounding in my mind.

The part that is easy to miss in this story is found in the two words, I am. Of course it does not come out quite so clearly in some English translations which is why I included an alternative reading above. But the statement that Jesus was making to this woman went far beyond a simple acknowledgement that He should be viewed as the person she was putting her life trust in. It was really making a powerful statement that could increase her appreciation of who the Messiah really was to a whole new level.

These words, I AM, were originated as the highest declaration of the power and identity of the Almighty God to Moses. God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14) Through all succeeding generations the Jewish people viewed this statement as one of the most sacred things ever spoken, one of the purest forms of identity when it came to defining who was the true God as opposed to all other claims.

So when Jesus was speaking with the Jewish leaders and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." (John 8:58 NKJV), it is no surprise that the Jews immediately took up stones to kill Him. In their minds darkened with unbelief, for Jesus to claim that He was truly God Himself was the ultimate blasphemy. It shocked them beyond all comprehension to think that a mere man would apply to himself the title of the great YAHWEH of heaven. Jesus' life was so out of harmony with their picture of what God was like that many of them never were able to enter into belief. The God they wanted to believe in was far more forceful, not nearly so humble and certainly would not demean Himself to live the kind of life and hang around with the kind of people that Jesus did.

And yet Jesus never changed His life in the slightest to accommodate the mistaken notions about God that humanity believed. He came to reveal the heart of the Father and He did that faithfully all the way to the end. But on rare occasions like this one with the woman at the well, Jesus was able to share His true identity with a far less hostile audience, and in this case the results were nothing less than thrilling.

This woman was already so compliant to following the promptings of the Spirit that she was actually much farther along in her faith journey than were any of the disciples that spent most of their time following Jesus. Imagine what could have happened and how different the gospels might have been written if even one disciple of Jesus had entered into the level of deep trust and belief in the divinity of Jesus to the extent that this woman did in such a short period of time. The effects of such belief would have been electrifying to say the least. This kind of belief is highly contagious and extremely effective in arousing similar faith within the hearts of others. If the disciples had been willing to believe in Jesus early on like this woman was willing to do, the truth about Him and His affect on the people would have been greatly multiplied from how the story now reads.

The very next verse highlights this contrast rather sadly. The priorities of the Jewish disciples seemed to be focused more on conforming to social expectations rather than on sharing the truth about Jesus and who He was to anyone who would listen. The differences between how the disciples viewed this situation and how this woman related to it are like night and day. The reasons for the disciple's amazement in the next verse was that Jesus was violating so many social restrictions in talking with a woman, and a Samaritan woman at that. But what becomes obvious in this story is that the woman herself is also filled with amazement – first that Jesus would speak with her at all given the many reasons why He should not, but then amazement from a heart that simply couldn't contain the excitement and joy of meeting the most important Man in the whole universe in person.

Unfortunately I presently fit too much into the class of the disciples rather than with this woman. My confused ideas about God prevent me from enjoying the kind of abandon and freedom to enter easily into a deeper level of belief and trust in a personal Messiah and Savior. I have so many religious barriers to deal with, so many questions that demand to be answered, so many fears to be delivered from before my heart feels safe to jump for joy and race into town to tell everyone about this most amazing Man.

I don't like my condition, but I have to be honest and confess my true condition at this point. I long for the day when my heart can teach me to dance, to sing for joy, to witness without any inhibition to the amazing power of love sent to earth to save me in the person of Jesus the Messiah. I crave to have the abandon of this woman to race back to all those who have despised and shamed me all of my life and invite them to join in a spirit of belief in the only One who can save any of us from our sins. I seek and I pray for God to give me a heart and mind similar to that demonstrated by this woman.