Dear Faithful and Fearless Seed-Sowers,

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is my prayer that during these days of the pandemic that we come to KNOW the LOVE of God, GROW in the GRACE of Jesus Christ, and GO in the POWER of the Holy Spirit. It’s really a perfect time to MAKE TIME to open your LIVING WORD and drink deeply from the WELL OF ETERNAL LIFE.

We are walking slowly through Samaria with Jesus.  We are walking very slowly. I encourage you to take a few moments and read John 4:1-26 again.  Put yourself into this story. Are you the woman at the well? Are you one of the disciples who go into town? Are you a town person? Maybe you’re the clerk selling the disciples food for Jesus. Seriously.  Go look at what Samaria looked like back then. Put yourself INTO the story. And then ask yourself, “What is the Holy Spirit saying to me?” “What is Jesus saying to me?” “What is God, my Father, saying to me?” As the pandemic lingers, maybe now is a good time to put yourself into another story: the story of the unnamed woman at the well.

Last week in The Seed of Faith we looked at the “Gentleness of Jesus.” This week I want like to reflect on “The Patience and Loving Kindness of Jesus.”

Here we go. The unnamed woman comes to draw water from the well in the middle of the day. I don’t know about you, but out here in SOCAL, it’s hot and it’s been hot for around 100 days. If I knew I had to go draw water every day, you can bet I’d get up early and go when it was the coolest. I know I wouldn’t go in the middle of the day when the sun was beating down the hottest.

There she is at the well. Can you see her? It’s hot. It’s the middle of the day and the sun is bright. Jesus asks her for a drink. “Hey, unnamed woman at the well, would you mind giving me, a total stranger, a drink of the water you just worked really hard to retrieve?”

I can picture the scene. I wonder if any words were exchanged. I wonder if she just shot Jesus a look before she replied, “I’m a Samaritan and you’re a Jew.  I’m a woman and you’re a man. We aren’t supposed to talk to each other.” And then Jesus speaks to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10

I have been pondering this question: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks for a drink….”

This unnamed woman comes every day to this well to draw water.  This water never gives her satisfaction. She’s always back the next day, and the day after that and the day after that.  And here is Jesus, opening up a dialogue. Will she respond? Will you?

Maybe a simple so what question for today is: what do you know about being dissatisfied by the world?

The dis-ease this woman has is dissatisfaction.  What is the dis-ease you have?  What are you dissatisfied with? Who are you dissatisfied with?  This woman lacks spiritual satisfaction and has gone to drink water from a well that will never satisfy.

So What?  How many times do you and I go to that well?

There’s plenty of wells that always say, “MORE!” How about the wells of of materialism, money, power, eating, drinking, sex–just to name a few. These are wells that never cry, “Enough. I’m satisfied.”

As many of you know, I love the Psalms.  I love the prayer in Psalm 103. Psalm 103 is only seventeen verses, but it is powerful.  I love verses 8 and 9 — “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever…” Psalm 103:8-9

Do you see it?  Do you hear it? The Lord is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.  That is exactly what Jesus was demonstrating with the woman at the well. On one side of the well we have the unnamed woman doing her job, doing her duty and on the other side of the well is Jesus. 

Look at the patience and loving-kindness of Jesus in this encounter. All throughout the Old Testament we read story after story of the patience, long-suffering, and loving-kindness of God.  In this story of the woman at the well we read about Jesus’ patience, long-suffering, and loving-kindness with this woman. This patience of Jesus is based upon His knowledge and power. Jesus knows the end from the beginning. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  Jesus is the Lord: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love. And the good news for us today is that Jesus is patient with us just as He was with woman at the well. Maybe she is unnamed so that we can easily put ourselves into her place, into her story. Jesus knows our condition, that is why he came into the world. Jesus knows men and women who are trapped in a sinful lifestyle just as this woman at the well was.

So What?
“So what?” do these ancient words mean to us today?

In January of 2003 I went with a group of men to Rockford, Illinois, to help get a Credo Recovery weekend started.  Did you catch that? It was the middle of January in Illinois.  What was wrong with me?  I grew up in Illinois. It is cold, and snowy, and windy, and freezing in Illinois in January.  And, sure enough, the snow was blowing, and temp was below zero. The Credo Recovery weekend was held inside the Salvation Army men’s adult rehabilitation center (ARC). Credo Recovery is a grace-based recovery weekend for those who are struggling with addiction; addictions of all kinds.  These men at this ARC had committed to staying in the Salvation Army Rehab facility for 90 days. Our Credo group went in and led worship and shared talks on God’s grace and forgiveness.  I was one of the spiritual directors. For one of the messages, I used Psalm 103:

Psalm 103
Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. ²Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— ³who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, ⁴who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, ⁵who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. ⁶The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. 7He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: 8The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. ⁹He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; ¹⁰he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. ¹¹For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; ¹²as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. ¹³As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; ¹⁴for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; ¹⁶the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. ¹⁷But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— ¹⁸with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. ¹⁹The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. ²⁰Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. ²¹Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. ²²Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, O my soul. (Psalm 103)

As I read my bible, I see my notes. My notes are like footprints of where I’ve been. As I read Psalm 103, I thought of these men and I thought of the woman at the well. Sitting across from the non-satisfying well that you pull up sits Jesus. Jesus told the unnamed woman everything she had ever done. He knew all about her and, yet, he waited for her.  He asked her for a drink.

I do not know what you are struggling with.  Maybe you go to a well every, single day and come back empty, and dissatisfied.  Maybe the fear of failure, the hurts of the past, the anxiety of the times, the physical struggles, or your emotional struggles have left you empty and wanting more.  I want you to know that it the Lord himself who is waiting at your well. It is the Lord of Psalm 103 who is waiting for you.

Jesus knows that we are dust. The Lord’s well was established in heaven and He is a well that never runs dry. Jesus is compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. He does not repay us for our sins. He removes our sins from us–as far as the east is from the west.

Do you see it? It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done. The unnamed woman was forgiven. The men and women of Credo have been forgiven. You and me? We are forgiven. Our sins have been removed from us.

And Jesus sits at the well of our life and waits for us.

If only you knew who it is who is asking you for a drink….

God loves you and so do I,
Pastor Dave
www.theseedchristianfellowship.com