As we start John 4, the first three verses tell us that Jesus decides to leave Judea because He finds out the Pharisees were told He was baptizing more people than John. It makes me wonder what it was about John that the Pharisees preferred over Jesus. For the purpose of this story it doesn't really matter. They are just telling us why He left, and that He is now going back to Galilee. On the way to Galilee He has to go through Samaria, which is where the actual story begins.
Instead of writing the story out verse by verse, I'll just summarize it. Jesus and His disciples had to through Samaria to get to Galilee. The disciples were in the village of Sychar getting food. Jesus was sitting beside Jacob's Well by himself. A woman came up to get some water. Jesus asked her to draw Him some water. This surprised her because Jews didn't associate or even talk to Samarians, not to mention a male Jew talking to a female. She asked Him why He was talking to her. He said if you knew who I was you would be asking me for a drink of living water, the kind where you won't get thirsty again. She asked for some of that water, He told her to go get her husband. Then He went on to tell her she had had five husbands and the man she was living with now wasn't even her husband. Even though He just freaked her out, it seems funny that she doesn't just run off. She just says "oh you must be a prophet," and asks where the correct place to worship is. He told her "soon it's not going to matter where you worship, as long as you worship in spirit and truth. The spirit He is talking about is the connection I've been referring to the past few posts. When you can block everything else out and focus on God. This is also where the truth comes in. Like I said last time, when you honestly search for Him He will be there, so the two kind of go together. I naturally don't know everyone's experience, but for myself, if I'm listening to Christian music, or praying and focus on the words being sung or prayerful thoughts in my head, I can tell I have that connection. You can just tell God is there with you. There is no way to describe it except to say, Jesus tells her since God is Spirit we have to worship Him in spirit. When we are able to do that we have connected spirit to spirit. Next she says "when the Messiah comes He will explain everything to us." So Jesus tells her "I am the Messiah." This time she leaves her water jug and runs off. It says she tells everyone in the village. I was wondering, is this an exaggeration or a literal statement? If it is literal, how long did it take? How small was this village? Did she just run through the town screaming? It says the people came streaming from the town to meet him.
I encourage you today to search for that connection. Get some Christian music. You can listen to some for free online. Check out Mercy Me, Third Day, or Casting Crowns. These are Christian rock bands but, they are more of a softer rock. They are easy to get in to. Search for that connection. Leave me some comments and let me know how it goes. Thanks for searching with me, Paul
3 comments:
You've inspired me! Last evening I was cruising rather sedately through a text called Thunder(gnostic) and a few phrases caught my attention.
"I am hearing for all, and my speech is indeciperable. I am an unspeaking mute and enormous in my many words."
The general feeling I had while reading this segment of Thunder and then your blog post today was the "indeciperhability" or utter loss we feel when trying to describe our live-wire connection to God. What words do you use to describe the biggest love you can possibly imagine? It's barely comprehensible to us so how in the world do we convey this to another soul?
I think I'll write about this feeling in my blog today. Wish me luck. lol I feel an epic "Fail" coming on. But at least I will have tried.
From what I read you accomplished the total opposite of fail. Sorry if you received a bunch of post. I've been using Microsoft word to publish lately and my last post was really goofy. Maybe because of the link I'm not sure. But like I said I feel like you nailed it. I am always happy to see you pop up in my reader, even if I don't have a chance to comment. Keep up the good work, Paul
I was pleasantly surprised at the end result, too! It's amazing the kinds of things you can literally talk yourself through and reach an answer. I may not win a Pulitzer for form but ya know what- it led me to a logical conclusion that I can be happy with.
Only got one comment email. Guess Microsoft Word's error messages or whatnot were lying just to give you a hard time. There have been a number of quirky things in Blogger which have been resolved the past year. Just nine months ago I was ready to hurt someone with the sheer aggravation I felt at trying to get all my font in the same size. It was REALLY bad!!! But Blogger fixed whatever it was that was fouling us up. And maybe it was only a few blogs. Who knows.
I've never tried Micro. Word to blog. I've seen the feature but never thought to use it. Mighty handy for saving work on a hardrive, I imagine.
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