Questioning God

She said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You...?" (John 4:11-12)

I feel an old issue stir up here when I read these words. I remember a number of times throughout the Bible when people reacted to God's instructions or revelations by expressing doubts and asking questions. What has interested me is the contrast between how God responded to various people's questioning of His words to them.

Sometimes when people questioned God's ability to do what He says He seems to go along with them and answer their questions and try to explain Himself. Other times it appears that He gets angry with them and rebukes them for daring to question His words. This has presented a question of my own, wanting to know what causes the difference between these various situations. Many assume that maybe God is just arbitrary and that you had better not take a risk challenging anything He says, that we should just blindly obey everything irregardless. But there are also instances in the Bible when people seemed to engage in rather strenuous arguments with God and God appeared to even enjoy the tussle.

Again, our interpretation of these various encounters with God will be largely determined by our current picture of God and perceptions of how He deals with people in general. If our idea of God is someone who is very demanding and arbitrary, then these different stories will only serve to illustrate that capricious view of God. But if we are seeking to know God, to understand Him better, to make more sense as much as possible of His dealings with men so that we can relate to a rational, consistent, caring being who has our best interest in mind, then I believe that there will be both encouraging instruction and warning found in of these stories.

This is one of the stories where Jesus went along with the questioning and the final outcome proved to be very positive and inspiring. This was also the case with Mary the mother of Jesus when the angel came to tell her that she would give birth to the Son of the Highest. Other people that come to mind right away who had interesting interchanges with God in a similar fashion are Elijah and Moses and even Jonah.

Of course there are also a number of people who were strongly rebuked when they attempted to enter into dispute with God's messages to them. What I now want to understand better is the real underlying reasons behind these various exchanges so that I don't find myself trying to argue with God when it is likely to only produce problems while at the same time not being afraid to enter into a closer relationship with God by asking legitimate questions that can lead to a deeper appreciation of His wisdom and love for me.

If I live in constant fear of ever asking questions of God, then that may be a clear indicator of a distorted view of God and that my heart would not really want to get very close to Him to begin with. On the other hand, I want to be aware of my need to respect God and trust Him and know the reasons behind why there are times when I need to trust God implicitly without having all the reasons I would like to have to support that choice. I believe that God gives enough evidence to base faith on but also requires that we must take some steps in faith without having all the facts or evidence to eliminate all doubt. But there are times when He is willing and maybe even eager to enter into dialog with those who are sincere and have honest doubts that need to be addressed. He is not offended by such discussions as is illustrated by this one with the woman from Sychar.

Instead of attributing the differences of response from God to a supposed arbitrariness on His part, I firmly believe that what makes the difference is the spirit and attitude of the person raising the questions. This is the most important aspect of the relationship that determines whether God rebukes someone or whether He is eager to engage in a lengthy conversation with them. God is not capricious as Satan would make Him out to be. Neither is He arbitrary or moody or completely unpredictable. And while we will never understand God enough to be able to predict what He will do, that does not detract in the slightest from the solid truth that God is absolutely and unwaveringly worthy of all trust.

At the same time, without taking away from that truth in the slightest, because of our mental limitations there are times when God is willing to humble Himself and answer our questions to assist us in coming into deeper trust of His heart. He does not demand that just because He is always trustworthy that everyone should blindly trust Him without any questions whatsoever. God is not looking for robots to obey Him or He would not have created us the the ability to think and to choose. Robots cannot experience love and God is desirous of a relationship of real love with each one of us, not blind, unthinking obedience. So Jesus did not become incensed when this woman had doubts about His offer of living water for her. He honored her curiosity and her questions by continuing the discussion and drawing her deeper and deeper toward a place of trust and joy in seeing the real truth about God's heart for her.

By contrast, the people in the Bible who were severely rebuked for questioning God harbored a spirit of clinging to their doubts in the face of repeated evidence of God's truth and care for them. They displayed an attitude of stubborn mistrust in spite of God's dealings with them and were in grave danger of resisting truth to the point of no return. Some of them went past that point and no longer were able to repent; a few accepted the warning and pulled back from the brink.

What is very important to note about this is that it is not God who is the variable in these situations, it is always the attitude of the person involved that determines how God responds to their questions. It is actually a comfort to learn that God can be trusted in all situations and never changes even though circumstances may make it appear differently. He may relate to various people very differently depending on the context of their relationship and disposition with Him, but when it all becomes clear it will be seen that God's heart is the great constant that can always be counted on to be the source of love and truth no matter what else is involved in the situation.

Give Me a Drink

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.) Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (John 4:9-10)

I am listening.

I am thirsty to know God, to know truth.

I want to see and know for myself more of the real truth about God here.

Jesus was thirsty. But here He seemed to use that more as a means of connecting with someone else who was very spiritually thirsty more than trying to satisfy His own need.

Is Jesus going to come along and ask me for a drink in order to draw me out and surprise me with an unexpected encounter with Him? I think I would like that. But what if I don't recognize Him when He shows up?

This woman was taken by surprise because Jesus violated many of the social assumptions that she expected Him to follow. When people meet there are always quite a number of norms and expectations and assumptions that each person expects the other to be aware of and to follow without explanation. Whenever someone ignores or violates our expectations it grabs our attention. Our reaction to that person's behavior and the way they are trying to relate to us outside the norm depends on our own attitude and previous experiences. Our reactions and choices in that moment reveal a great deal about us, much more than we might imagine.

That concerns me greatly. Far too often I find myself giving in to social pressures and roles in my encounters with those who appear in need before me. This woman was willing to engage with Jesus openly and to dialog with Him. I'm afraid that I may not be that bold. It is so much easier to walk past that homeless person, to indulge in the disdain of that pimp or such similar people. The urges to view them and treat them differently often go right past me in my fears of what others might think about me. But am I missing chance after chance to encounter Jesus and experience something new and different because I am living too much from fear and prejudice instead of seeing people as children of God?

This woman revealed a lot about her expectations and assumptions in the words that she used in response to Jesus' request. I suspect that her body language also conveyed even more things about her feelings but we don't have record of any of that except at the very end of the story. But in these initial words she reveals shock or surprise that a man who is a Jew is acting so very differently than men and Jews were always expected to act toward women and Samaritans.

This is unexplainable to her. She cannot come up with any logical reason on her own why this might be happening. She searches all of her internal library of previous life experiences and teachings and comes up empty with anything that would fit to explain this strange behavior. But instead of becoming afraid, intimidated and running away, she further reveals more about herself by choosing to engage in conversation with this person who should never have initiated a conversation to begin with from her perspective. But since He started it she is willing to continue it and launch herself into the fascinating unknown of what might transpire between them.

Her first words are those of curiosity and a desire for an explanation of what seems so bizarre to her. She decides not to ignore the strangeness of this situation but to immediately seek to find out from this stranger what motivates Him to act to kindly, so openly, so uninhibited toward someone to whom He should never be doing this according to all social norms. She decides to try to learn directly from Him what makes Him tick, why He is acting so differently than everyone else she has ever known. She seeks to go directly to the source with boldness and see if her question might elicit an answer which she cannot find within her own mind.

In essence, what I am now starting to see here is that she is actually seeking light through a new insight, trying to get information from the outside by acknowledging that she doesn't have a satisfactory answer of her own. She could have simply chosen to fabricate her own explanation for this based on her internal filters by making assumptions based on her own conclusions about people without resorting to getting more information. Sometimes I do that. I decide not to ask why someone did something or treated me in a strange way. I just jump to my own conclusions and run with that without asking for input directly from the other person.

But this woman chose to take the risk of going ahead and talking with this man who was also a Jew and in public. She was not too afraid to experience something different and new and unusual. She chose to express her curiosity and open herself up to a different explanation of this relationship than the only ones she had on file.

“How can you do this? Why are you doing this? Please explain your unusual treatment of me.”

This gives Jesus the opportunity that He wanted – an open invitation to redefine their relationship and roles. He was painfully aware of the deep prejudices and bigotry of nearly everyone else who was both male and a Jew against people like this woman. But He did not share in any of that and was always eager and ready to connect at the heart level with anyone willing and ready to do the same. Being led by the Spirit of God all of the time just as it is our privilege to experience if we are willing, Jesus already sensed that this woman was more ready for the real truth about God than were most other people. Because of that He also knew that she was ripe for allowing Him to reveal to her the radically new kind of relationship that God was seeking to have with any humans who were willing to allow Him to reveal Himself to them. She was ready and unconsciously eager to embrace the real gospel, the incredibly good news about how God felt about her.

So upon her request (and implied permission) to explain why He was treating her with such respect and honor, Jesus takes the opportunity to challenge her assumptions and perceptions of both of their identities. He states rather plainly that her assumptions are faulty, that most everything she believes about how men should treat women and how Jews should treat non-Jews were all up for serious question. If she is willing to suspend her own long-held beliefs based on years of experience through abuse by men and from Jews, then she may see the door Jesus is opening for her to step through and experience a relationship like none she has ever imagined could even exist.

Jesus begins to fill in information about this new potential relationship by talking about God and about a gift and about some strange idea of “living water”. Of course, in her thinking water is generally associated with satisfying fundamental needs in her life. So the idea of living water – whatever that might mean – only fueled her curiosity into an even greater intensity. He also suggests that if she just knew the information that He knows, then instead of expecting Him not to even speak to her she would have initiated the conversation herself and reversed their roles as far as who was asking for a drink.

Jesus entices her to be bold enough to ask Him for a drink instead of the other way around and declares that she will receive what she asks for without hesitation. This may highlight the current situation that she was in fact not doing anything herself to satisfy His request for water while they are standing here carrying on a conversation. But instead of making her feel guilty for not helping a stranger in obvious need, He demonstrates in His own attitude and words that He is willing to share with her something even more satisfying than the water found in this well – at least if she is interested and willing to ask.

But more importantly, Jesus is helping her to see that their identities are not what she has assumed them to be. He is implying that the fact that He looks like a man and is identifiable as a Jew is not the most important thing about their relationship. Also He wants her to know that the fact that she is a woman and happens to be a Samaritan also is not the most important thing about their relationship. Since she invited Him to explain to her why He is treating her so differently, He takes her up on that offer and challenges her to suspend her own assumptions and allow Him to paint a completely different picture of what their relationship and identities might look like if she allowed Him to redefine them.

The implications are pregnant with meaning for us today, for myself. There are so many things I am starting to see in this story about my own relationship with God.

Am I willing to challenge my assumptions and prejudices and preconceived ideas about relationships, especially with God?

Am I willing to allow God to redefine who He is to me and who I am and how we can communicate and view each other?

Am I willing to ask Him to supply something I have never known or experienced before but that promises to satisfy my deepest thirst?

Am I willing to experience such a radical paradigm shift of reality that it appears absurd to everyone else who still lives in the world of social norms and restrictions and prejudices?

Am I willing to enter into a dialog with Jesus and challenge Him to explain Himself to me?

Am I ready to embrace His answers to me even when they may sound so strange and different that they don't fit anything I have known or experienced before?

And am I willing to go even farther and actually think about doing something that might actually bring satisfaction and joy to God's heart – like providing a drink for Him when He is thirsty?

That last one may at first sound absurd until I remember the words of Jesus Himself.

"And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." (Matthew 10:42)

For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in....

The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' (Matthew 25:35, 40)

Enticing Gift

Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." She said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? 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?" (John 4:10-12)

What are the main things in this part of their dialog?

It started out with a request for physical water to satisfy physical thirst on the part of Jesus from a woman who could have given it to Him without resistance or even comment.

Because she chose to bring up the issue of the expected prejudices that would normally exist between them, especially from His side, Jesus suddenly begins to talk on a completely different level, a much more spiritual-oriented level that causes her to think deeper and raises questions in her mind.

This woman knew nothing about Jesus except that He looked like a Jew, He was a man and He was obviously tired and thirsty.

Now He begins talking about God which very likely brought up another whole set of prejudices she would expect from both sides. In fact, since she initiated the discussion about prejudice to start with, this allowed Jesus to take the discussion right through that open door that she had made and begin to talk about the real issues behind those prejudices and challenge the false assumptions that she had about them. For the real point of contention that lay at the root of the deep hatred the Jews had for the Samaritans was their beliefs about each side's relationship with God and their perceptions about how God viewed them or valued them.

For Jesus to launch His discussion about God by talking about a gift is significant I believe. This strikes at the root of most of our false ideas about God. Humans tend to view God as one who is demanding something from us much more than offering us kindness or bringing us a gift. Even if our religious teachings use all sorts of words and phrases to the effect of God as a gift-giver, our hearts still have pictures of God that view Him much differently than our words often portray.

Secondly, Jesus brings up the issue of His own identity. He challenges her assumptions about Him, not allowing them to just stand without opportunity to show her the real truth about Himself. But instead of protesting or defending His true identity, He guides the conversation by the use of baits for her curiosity. He refers to things that are important to her to draw her into thinking more into the open about things that are real and that will cause her to begin thinking about things that are unresolved much deeper in her heart. Jesus wants to take her to the deepest places of the soul where she has the most intense need for real healing and satisfaction.

I wonder if the idea of a gift was a natural trigger word that would connect with her particula personality. Maybe she was the kind of person who especially enjoyed gifts, who liked to give gifts to others and who communicated through the use of gifts more than the average person. If so, then Jesus' use of a reference to a gift, especially coming from God, would really grab her attention and maybe even cause her face to light up with anticipation and curiosity.

Closely connected with the idea of gifts is the identity of the gift-giver. The meaning of gifts is closely linked to the identity of whoever it is who offers them. Secret gifts can create an enormous amount of interest in people's imagination wondering who it is who is trying to impress them and draw out their attentions. The use of gifts has always been a means by which people try to soften others up, to change their opinions about them, to prepare their heart to be more open to viewing the gift-giver in a more positive light.

The more I consider this aspect of the story the more intriguing it is and full of potential insights. I want to think more about this idea of a gift and why Jesus wanted to connect it with God and with Himself. In fact, that is exactly what He was doing in this sentence. He starts out by talking about a gift, an offer of kindness designed to induce a much deeper level of friendship, and then immediately puts Himself into the picture as possibly one and the same with the gift-giver Himself. It also resonates with the recent conversation recorded here that Jesus had with Nicodemus.

From my perspective of this conversation after the fact, I can read much more into these words than the woman would have initially. I look at this and ask, Could Jesus be inferring that the gift of God and His own identity may be one and the same? Is He Himself the gift He is talking about, at least in part?

But I don't think that was part of her thinking at that point in time, though it may have started to sink in later on. I believe that at this point Jesus was primarily trying to connect in her mind a strong link between His own identity and the identity of the originator of the gift which He plainly said was God. In addition He also refers to living water which also could be viewed as the gift which God had to offer her. But in fact, when it is all said and done it becomes evident that Jesus Himself is in fact the living water that God was offering to her. But at this point Jesus is not trying to explain all of that. He is simply eliciting her curiosity and drawing out her heart in connection with the deeper longings within her that He wants to address and satisfy.

It may seem silly to state the obvious, but I often find it helpful, for me anyway, to do that in my pursuit of turning over every stone to hunt for exciting treasures in the Word of God. Jesus did not use some other analogy here because He always tried to fit His communications to what was of interest to the person He was talking to. So in starting a conversation with this woman Jesus chooses to use thirst and water and gifts to elicit the most interest in her heart. If He were to talk about fish or farming or other illustrations that He used other times it would not have had near the effect that water and gifts had in her mind.

Then I wonder how many times we tend to try to offer up analogies to people to generate interest in spiritual things that simply don't resonate at all with where they are in their own life. Sometimes in frustration we even try to force them to feel a need for our analogies or our brand of “evangelistic” methods to make them feel a desire for what we want to tell them. We talk about sheep and shepherds when most of us have never been around sheep. We rehearse Jesus' stories about farming when some people don't even hardly know where food comes from. But Jesus did not use that approach. He personalized His conversations with people to connect with them using the things that they were most familiar with in their own life.

Sometimes I wonder about our reluctance to use any parables except what Jesus used to illustrate the nature of the real kingdom of heaven. We are afraid that God might be offended if we try to come up with new illustrations that involve modern situations and technology that are a large part of our daily thinking. Yet I believe that if Jesus were here in person today He would do exactly that.

But wait! He said that He is here in the person of each one who gives themselves to Him to be used as a channel for Him to reach others. So maybe He just might still be adapting His words and references to meet people where their real interest can be peaked the most. Maybe if we listen to the Spirit like Jesus listened to it we too would speak words and intriguing thoughts that would be relevant to others and attract them to want to know God at a much deeper level.

I want to explore even more this idea of a gift. But I will have wait to do that when I have more time.