Sitting Thus by the Well - 2

and Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. (John 4:6)

Maybe it is because my mind has been cogitating on this for a few days. Or maybe God wanted to offer me another insight – or both. I woke up earlier than usual this morning with a distinct feeling that God was inviting me to get up and spend more time with Him than I have been for several days. Lately I have been a bit rushed in my devotional time because of work schedules, tiredness etc. As a result I have started noticing an increase of spiritual hunger inside of me that must not go unnoticed or unaddressed.

So, maybe as a way to help motivate me to get up, I internally heard something about this word that I wrote about a few days ago and have been pondering. I have been wondering why it says here that Jesus was sitting thus by the well. Well, upon reflection it seems quite obvious now what this can mean from the words just previous – He was tired!

Interesting. Jesus was not living as a superhero who always had the advantages and was never in a position of needing to receive help for Himself. This is much more than just a theological explanation about the physicalness of Jesus and the fact that He was able to get tired like everyone else. Jesus was very possibly so exhausted from the walking, from the heat of the day and, in addition the emotional drain of being misunderstood and misrepresented by the religious leaders where He was just leaving that He absolutely had to collapse by the well and wait for His disciples to go into the village to get some nourishment for all of them because He was simply too tired to move another step.

From this perspective I can now see Jesus looking completely drained and sitting against the well trying to get what little shade might possibly be found at high noon, which probably wasn't much. It is quite evident to anyone looking at Him that He is very tired and in such a state is actually very vulnerable. This is interesting because we don't typically think of Jesus as appearing vulnerable most of the time. But then why is this? Jesus Himself made it very clear in another place that the way we treat the most vulnerable in society is how He considers that we treat Him. (Matt. 25:31-46)

It was in this position of obvious vulnerability that the woman – who was also quite vulnerable herself – found Him as she approached the well to get water at a most inconvenient time of the day for her. She was a vulnerable person who felt ostracized by the rest of the people of her village; she was one who didn't trust anyone any more, especially men. So when she arrived on the scene, God knew that she would not be attracted to engage in conversation with a man who looked confident, self-assured or even “normal”. Because of her deep fears and suspicions and her own history of broken relationships and quite possibly even abuse, the only way she might open up to listen to what God wanted to share with her about Himself was to be have opportunity to connect with someone who appeared as weak and vulnerable as she was.

As I ponder this I am moved at the heart level with the awesomeness of a God who is not just willing but eager to connect with me right where I am emotionally and spiritually. He does not insist that I get my life together better before He is willing to be my friend. He can do that within me if I allow Him to later by His transforming grace. But right now He is more than willing to disguise Himself in the form of a helpless stranger in desperate need of assistance in order to deliver the very blessings and help that I myself need.

Of course, if I look at it this way that can also be a very frightening proposition as well. From that perspective I very well may be missing many opportunities to encounter God in the person of the most vulnerable when I fail to relate to them because of my own pride or my prejudice or fear of what others might think of me. It also strongly implies that He very well may want to use me to reach others by appearing vulnerable to them. But feeling vulnerable is not exactly high on my list of desirable situations to experience around others.

The ensuing interaction between Jesus and this vulnerable woman of Sychar has proven to be one of the most profound exchanges and revelations of light and truth in all of the Bible. Jesus ended up being more open with her in the simple discussion that followed than nearly anyone else that He talked to in person. This woman was entrusted with core truth, a key of sorts that has intrigued and stimulated people interested in deeper spirituality and a closer connection with God for centuries since that day. But the scene was set up by Jesus allowing Himself to become so vulnerable and exhausted that He could be approached by someone who likewise felt all too vulnerable herself. Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well...

I sense that I need to learn a great deal from this simple verse. I don't enjoy being vulnerable. I prefer to feel confident, strong, bold and even a little assertive at times. Like the Jews, I like to think of a God who is strong and in charge, not a God who appears impotent and vulnerable. And yet over and over again in Scripture I find a God who puts Himself into the place of the weakest and tends to identify with the most vulnerable among us and calls us to find Him and relate to Him there. This does not fit neatly into the religion that is popular today, but it seems to be the direction that must be followed if I am to discover the kind of incredible insights and experience the kind of heart relationship with God that this woman was privileged to experience later in this story.

The profound words about God and about true worship that later come out in this story have captured my attention for a number of years. The necessary involvement of both spirit and truth needed to experience true worship of God has riveted my attention over and over and kept me searching for that kind of true worship in my own life. Now, what I am seeing in this one little word thus helps me to better understand the context in which these words were spoken. And the context, the scene, the emotions and setting and “props” if you please, that creates the atmosphere for this revelation about God is becoming more clear to me.

Father, I want to praise You for waking me up this morning to share more of Your heart with me. You have already spoken a number of things to my mind and my heart and I want to thank You for being willing to meet me where I am in my own problems and fears and issues. You know far better than I do the many misconceptions about You that still keep me afraid of trusting You fully. You know the pain and abuse that I have suffered in the name of religion that has terribly distorted and limited my ability to trust You and receive Your love for me as I need to.

You also know the spiritual pride that strangles my ability to hear You as well as I need to and I ask You to continue to heal me of that especially. I want to live in open, free, joyful communion with You and be willing and humble enough to relate to You in the person of the most vulnerable and unattractive ones that You put into my life. As I have been praying already this morning, I want to be filled with the joy of Your salvation in my life and my heart. I want to know You at a much deeper level than ever before. I want that intimacy that You have been talking to me about for so many years now. I want You to live and dwell and be in full authority inside of my heart so that Your beauty and attractions can be seen in the way that I relate to others.

Father, I have felt Your convictions about my discontent with some of the people I associate with and do things with. I have wished that I could have relationships and interactions with people who are more “with it”, who have more of the personalities or skills and abilities that I enjoy. But You have been reminding me that these people are in my life for a reason and if I will allow You to, You will use me to not only bless them through me but may even surprise me with fresh revelations about Yourself through them.

Thank-you for Your word and for Your Spirit that is always ready and eager to reveal Your heart to me through Your word. Thank-you for leading me, for attracting me to Your heart over the past few years. I also ask that You intensify a deep hunger to know You not only in my own heart but in the hearts of every member of my own family, my siblings and those I know in my local church and other fellowships. Please send Your Spirit to awaken and stir within our hearts a desire to really know You with a level of desperation that cannot be ignored. Send a revival of genuine godliness so that we can see more clearly the real truth about Your love.

Obedience or More?

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36)

This verse touches something inside of me that has been coming to my attention lately that needs to be dealt with internally. It is a trigger that is ignited spontaneously in my mind anytime certain words related to obedience or law or some such related issue is mentioned. As a result of my legalistic upbringing and because most of society around me, even secular society is filled with legalistic thinking and attitudes, this concept for me is a strong trigger point.

Most people assume that this means I need to be forced to submit to authority and have my rebellious spirit broken. And while it is certainly true that I need to become free of a spirit of rebellion, I believe it is becoming clearer to those who choose to think carefully, that breaking the spirit of an individual, even an animal, is the wrong way to bring about a healthy relationship with that individual. It may produce external conformity and compliance, but it cannot result in a deep love relationship or freedom at the heart level.

This verse keeps bringing me back to this issue every morning since it is right in the middle of the section of verses I am contemplating lately. So this morning I decided to take a closer look at this and look up the original words in the Greek to see what they really mean. As I thought, the word translated not obey is in essence the very opposite from the word translated believes. However, because of the English usage of these words is so different than in the original languages it is actually impossible to properly express these two words from the original so simplistically in our language.

The first word actually is closely related to what we usually term faith or belief. But this faith is much deeper and more active than simply an intellectual exercise, opinion, belief system or even religious prejudice. This is the kind of faith that works itself out in natural expression in the life because of the heart's synchronization with the heart of the object of that faith. It can best be described as the loyal relationship of a person who is coming to trust more and more the integrity, transparency and worthiness of the other person so much so that they are willing to make confident choices based on the reliableness of the other person. This kind of faith is so sure and trusting in the other that it is willing to take great risks based on what is believed about the other.

The second word in the Greek translated variously not obey or not believe in various versions of the Bible, is about as opposite a word as can be produced. It is the very essence of the opposite of the first word. So all the nuances implied about the trust and confidence embedded in the word for believe are just the opposite in the person who disbelieves. Included in that is the idea of a deliberate choice, not just ignorance. This verse is not referring to a lack of belief due to a lack of awareness or knowledge. The original word strongly indicates that this is a situation of willful unbelief even to the point of perverseness. This is choosing to not believe in the face of evidence and awareness of the trustworthiness of the other person. Hence, it will also be evident in this condition that unbelief will include a lack of synchronization with God or what is commonly called disobedience.

Ironically this kind of disobedience can actually be masked by the appearance of obedience when that obedience is intended to make it look like a person is in compliance with the rules and laws in place. This is really a part of the essence of legalism, trying to comply with all the rules in order to establish the appearance of a relationship without having the heart transformed and synchronized with the heart of the trustworthy Lawgiver. It is like trying to keep up the appearance of a good marriage by complying with all the formulas laid out by experts while failing to become intimately connected emotionally or becoming vulnerable to one's spouse. Many marriages are in fact in this condition and from the outside everyone thinks that they are very healthy. But when the truth is revealed it can be seen that the marriage is only superficial and is maintained more for convenience or to maintain a comfort zone or to keep others from talking instead of for real love.

The truth involved in having a real marriage that is healthy is actually the closest thing God has given us to understand the kind of even deeper relationship that we need to have with Him if we are to enjoy this eternal life talked about in this verse. In essence, this verse is saying that if we want to have eternal life we must have the kind of relational, responsive, trusting faith in the Son of God that will express itself through every part of our life and our decisions. And in contrast to that, anyone who deliberately chooses to turn away from His invitation to have this kind of relationship with Him will not see life. And since the only alternative to life is death and all that goes with it like pain, fear, suffering, anger and the rest of the descriptions of sin, then this condition will be the result of that choice.

So it is not nearly so shallow as sometimes it first appears when reading this text. The implications of this verse are about as profound as profound gets. This is at the very heart of the choice that everyone of us has to face in our life.

As I become aware of the real truth about God and His offer of salvation for me through the life and ministry of Jesus, I am forced by this awareness to make decisions about how I am going to relate to Him. And behind my choices will lie the beliefs that I really hold at the heart level about how God feels about me. If I believe things that are not true about Him but that feel true to me about God's attitudes and treatment of me, then I may likely pull away in fear and look for alternative ways to find life or hope or strength for myself. But if I choose to trust His heart even when I cannot understand it, I will enter into a relationship with Him that will transform my own heart and I will experience the effect of being changed by the grace that is ever-present to restore me to wholeness, peace and joy.

Backing Off

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more ..., He left... and went away.... (John 4:1-3)

One of the most liberating and yet frightening things about God that I have learned in the past few years is the fact that God never, ever uses force or compulsion to get people to come to Him. God is not interested at all in others having a relationship with Him based on any force or coercion because that eliminates the ability to have a love relationship in the heart. God only wants love to be the basis of all relationships and without that the relationship will be based on something less than faith that works by love; and whatever is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23 WEB)

As evidenced in the above verse, Jesus did not stay and impose Himself onto the Pharisees to get them to change their minds about Him and His motives. When it became clear that they might make a big deal out of Jesus' rising popularity in comparison that of John the Baptist, instead of trying to explain His actions or even reason with them, Jesus simply withdrew from the growing tension and went to the far end of the country. God always led Jesus around by His Spirit and there were plenty of other things for Him to do and people to minister to that were far more effective at that time than to waste His efforts with religious people stuck in their own stubborn, righteous pride.

However, this does not imply in the slightest that Jesus loved the Pharisees less than others. The most amazing thing about Jesus is His constant and never-wavering love for everyone no matter how they feel about Him. And while He had to relate to different people in different ways because of their attitudes and perceptions, everything He did and said was calculated to induce the greatest possible attraction to Himself and toward His Father. Whether they chose to respond to that attraction positively or to put up greater resistance to His revelation of love was a choice completely up to them. But for Jesus' part He never had one thought of resentment or bitterness for the way He was misrepresented or maligned. He simply went straight forward loving every single individual as much as was possible.

Sometimes this meant that He had to withdraw from their presence so that His love would not create undue discomfort because of their stubborn resistance to truth. Instead of using confrontation He chose to give them their space. And what was the truth that created so much resentment in some hearts? It was the truth about how God treats sinners and relates to them. This truth about God was the most volatile revelation in the life of Jesus that in turn produced the most hostility and anger in religious people more than anything else. And it still has the very same effect today whenever it becomes evident.

This is one reason why it is so easy to misunderstand God's love. God has a real dilemma on His hands. His heart yearns to bond with us in love, and yet God has to protect us from Himself in order to continue to attract us to Him without overwhelming or frightening us away. For real love is so powerful, so intense and so easily misunderstood that if one believes lies about the motives of the lover, the result can often be just the opposite of the desires of the one who is so loving. So in order for a deceived person to be allowed the time and space to possibly change their perceptions and perspective about the one who desires to love them it is necessary to veil most of the love and only allow them to see a little bit until they begin to warm up to the real truth about the heart of the one seeking their affections.

Continued resistance to love means that the one who is trying to love has to keep withdrawn, has to keep at a great distance and if this goes on too long the heart that is resisting becomes so entrenched in lies about the other person that it eventually becomes impossible to change its opinions at all. This is the end condition of all who will be lost. It is not some arbitrary decision on God's part whether we are saved or lost based on our performance or our righteousness, it is simply a natural outworking of the decisions that we make each day as to how we are going to relate to the revealed love and invitations of the greatest Lover of all seeking to change our minds and heart about Him.

And this brings me back to the frightening part of this whole thing. It is so easy to take advantage of that kind of love, to rely on unconditional forgiveness so much that I indulge in sin which causes deeper damage to my own ability to respond to love. Sometimes I actually wish God would use force to draw me into His love, but the reality is that force and love are completely incompatible; to use one is to exterminate the other.

Thus, in my own experience and pursuit of knowing God I find it too easy to exploit His love and to take it for granted. Not that He will ever withdraw it from me, that part needs to be taken much more for granted. But just because His love is never-changing and His forgiveness is unconditional does not mean that it will continue to have the same saving potential to transform me if I resist its softening influence deep inside of me. If I choose over and over to disobey the principles of reality and love as revealed to me by the Creator of love Himself, then I end up destroying my own ability bit by bit to be transformed by that love and will cause Him to have to withdraw from me just as Jesus did at times with those who resisted His love when He was here on earth.

Growing up in a religious atmosphere where force and intimidation were simply assumed to be part of religion, it is still very difficult for me to assimilate or appreciate the ways of God in this area yet today. My mental wiring is so accustomed to resorting to force whenever I believe it is necessary that I find it downright baffling whenever I observe others using quite different methods to deal with tense situations. Even in trying to change my own attitudes and behaviors I am accustomed to resorting to force, insults and even intimidation of my own heart based on fear to get myself to change. But I am learning that whether coercion comes from others or from myself it is still never part of God's ways of dealing with the heart. These are reflective of old misconceptions about God that still lurk all over my internal emotional makeup. But God never changes and God's ways are always the ways of love.

He will however, use warnings and appeals and anything possible within the realm of truth and awareness of consequences to get my attention to the dangers of resisting real love. But He simply cannot utilize the common methods of mingling force with attractions like we so often take for granted in our ways of dealing with each other. God's ways are not our ways and love has far more than enough power and resources inherently to overcome in the long run without changing its fundamental essence and practices.

The real problem is always our perceptions about God, never His attitudes and feelings about us. It is never God's mind or heart that needs to be changed in the slightest when there is tension between us, it is always the subtle and deeply ingrained lies still resident in our hearts that need to be exposed and exchanged for the real truth about Him. When we come to more completely appreciate His ways and His heart, it will become easier for us to respond to His love with hearts eager to obey even when it doesn't make sense to our heads. It is God's plan to win us heart-first for it is with the heart that we must believe if we are to enter into a vital relationship with the Source of our salvation.

Father, I find it all too easy to take advantage of You. You are so polite it frightens me at times. You respect my choices to take advantage of You and to push away Your circle of protection to some extent. You let me plunge into indulging my sinful desires without forcing me to stop and You are always ready to accept me back in a moment. But what happens during those escapades is that my heart is reignited with old lies about You that make me believe You reduce Your love for me when that happens. The condemnation I feel seems to come from You even though Your word says otherwise. Then my internal picture of how You feel about me is once again seriously distorted and I have to re-travel the path back into the truth about You that I have been over repeatedly.

It is far too easy to do this again and again. Sometimes I wish You would stop me from going down that road again, but then I realize that Your respect for my freedom to choose is crucial to my long-term trust in You if we are to bond properly and effectively. The more I see how You relate to me with respect and freedom the more in awe I am of Your love. But I still have far too little appreciation or understanding of this.

Please open my eyes and my heart to see myself as You see me. I know I am terribly blind to my own condition even if others around me can see some of it much easier. Send Your Spirit to soften me, to alert me, to warn me and to win my heart and affections to Your heart. Thank-you so much for Your patience and long-suffering with me. Keep showing me more of Your heart and Your ways and Your face.