Returning to the Well

My church’s young adult/college ministry has been going through a series called “Cravings”. I was supposed to preach Monday night to wrap up the series, but unfortunately I got sick and was unable to even attend. But I still feel like it’s a word that I’m meant to share in some capacity, so what better place to share than here?

If you know me or have read my journals, you probably know my love for the woman at the well. There are so many things you can learn from her story. She’s relatable. And as I prepared my message over the past few weeks, I feel like God has been revealing more to me through her story- about her cravings, Jesus’ cravings, and forgiveness.

You find her story in John 4. The Passion Translation titles it as “A Thirsty Savior”.

I’m going to start this in verse 6. Talking about Jesus, it says “Wearied by his long journey, he sat on the edge of Jacob’s well, and sent his disciples into the village to buy food, for it was already afternoon. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

You see both of them with cravings in these verses. You see her come to the well when she knows that nobody else would be there. She was craving being alone because she believed she didn’t belong. When our minds lie to us, we crave things that aren’t good for us. She knew her story, knew her life, and it twisted what her true identity was, and so she labeled herself as less than. But Jesus? He asks her for a drink. But when He asks her this, He isn’t asking for actual water, instead He was craving the refreshing, satisfying pleasure of her devotion. He tells us that nothing satisfies Him but us.

Later on, in verses 13-15, as the woman asks about the living water, Jesus answers her saying “If you drink from Jacob’s well, you’ll be thirsty again, but if anyone drinks the living water I give them, they will never be thirsty again. For when you drink the water I give you, it becomes a gushing fountain of the Holy Spirit, flooding you with endless life!” The woman replied, “Let me drink that water so I’ll never be thirsty again and won’t have to come back here to draw water.” She tells Jesus in this moment “I never want to come back to this place.” She is feeling broken, terrified, ashamed, and she wants nothing but to run off and never have to come back. She didn’t yet process that Jesus was referring to being a dwelling place for His joy and delight.

The conversation continues in verses 16-18. Jesus said, “Go get your husband and bring him back here.” “But I’m not married,” the woman answered. “That’s true,” Jesus said, “for you’ve been married five times, and now you’re living with a man who is not your husband. You have told the truth.” The five husbands speak to the five senses. The six men speak of our fallen humanity. It speaks to the fact that our heart can never be satisfied with what is on this earth, that Christ is the seventh husband, the only One who satisfies. But why 5 marriages and a 6th man that isn’t her husband? Because you will always run from one thing to the next when you’re looking for happiness instead of holiness that only comes through Him.

Verses 23-24 tell us more about His craving. These verses tell us that He longs to have sincere worshipers who adore Him in the realm of the Spirit and in truth. And as Jesus reveals Himself to the woman, you see her leave her water jar and run off to her village to tell everyone about Him. Her old cravings or being alone are now replaced with cravings from Him. She wants to know Him and tell the world about Him. We have to know our want. I've been asking myself daily “do I want this temporary thing over the call on my life?” Instead of her craving things of the world, she thirsts and longs to know Him more. I imagine her singing a song, as she runs to her village, that would be similar to the song that David sings in Psalm 63.

O God of my life, I’m lovesick for you in this weary wilderness. I thirst with the deepest longings to love you more, with cravings in my heart that can’t be described. Such yearning grips my soul for you, my God! 2 I’m energized every time I enter your heavenly sanctuary to seek more of your power and drink in more of your glory. 3 For your tender mercies mean more to me than life itself. How I love and praise you, God! 4 Daily I will worship you passionately and with all my heart. My arms will wave to you like banners of praise. 5 I overflow with praise when I come before you, for the anointing of your presence satisfies me like nothing else. You are such a rich banquet of pleasure to my soul. 6–7 I lie awake each night thinking of you and reflecting on how you help me like a father. I sing through the night under your splendor-shadow, offering up to you my songs of delight and joy! 8 With passion I pursue and cling to you. Because I feel your grip on my life, I keep my soul close to your heart. 9 Those who plot to destroy me shall descend into the darkness of hell. 10 They will be consumed by their own evil and become nothing more than dust under our feet.[a] 11 These liars will be silenced forever! But with the anointing of a king I will dance and rejoice along with all his devoted lovers who trust in him.

She runs to the village and tells them to “Come and meet a man at the well who told me everything I’ve ever done!” Imagine this moment! She had been the talk of the town. They had been assuming things about her, and in this moment she basically tells them “what you thought of me, maybe that was right, but that’s not who I am now.”

And then we see Jesus speaking up to the disciples a couple of verses later when He says “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and bring it to completion.” He says “What satisfies ME is a daughter taking me up on my offer to be what she couldn’t be herself!”

She was trapped in a cycle. I don’t know the context of what got her into that first marriage, or even where all of this began, but I imagine the craving didn’t come out of nowhere. I think there had to have been some type of emotional wound or something. And I think some of us are in a place where our greatest cravings, and most complicated temptations came from a coping mechanism that we once ran to in order to not feel the pain. But there are no quick fixes to emotional wounds. In fact, these quick fixes, like I said, can turn into self-destructive behaviors. And these behaviors can’t be overcome by rigid rules or restrictions, they require self-forgiveness and compassion.

And that’s where I’m at right now. Self-forgiveness. It’s way easier to say than to do.

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Treat others how you want to be treated”? I remember that being the golden rule in my kindergarten class. I remember looking above the window every morning and seeing it written across a banner. I can still picture it. I had always thought of it in a way of if you want to be treated kindly by other people, then you should be kind to other. That you should treat someone in a way that you would want the people around you to treat you. But God revealed something new to me in that phrase the other day. It came with a sense of desperation- not in the way of how you treat others, but how you treat yourself.

One of my friends told me the other day, “Kendall, I think the reason you’re so forgiving of other people is that you want to forgive yourself.” And it hurt if I’m being totally honest, because I’d never thought about it like that. I know I forgive others easily. And I think that goes back to how I would want people to respond to me. But I can also feel the hurt when you want to be forgiven, and I try to see the beauty in people. But for the past 2 and a half years, I’ve been desperately trying to forgive myself for something that somebody else did because I blindly entered a situation because I only wanted to see the good in them, much like I wanted people to see in me. And forgiving them? That was easy. But forgiving myself? Not so much. I feel like we can all relate to that to some extent- where it’s easy to forgive others, but so hard to forgive yourself. We create a blank slate for someone who hurts us but look at ourselves as undeserving.

I see the woman at the well in this place. Because of the mistakes she’d made, situations she’d been in, she saw herself as undeserving. And then failed marriage after failed marriage happens because, at the end of the day, “we accept the love we think that we deserve.” (That’s a quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower.)

She idolized relationships. My hurt came from this same place. And the struggle for self-forgiveness came back to the fact that I struggled to see myself beyond what I had once idolized because, as my pastor shared on Sunday, when you worship an idol it makes you like one of them. And so I’m in this place where I’m trying to see Him for who He really is in my life, because as I continue to know Him more and more, every other idol must fade away. They cannot compare to Him. And as I know Him more and more, I will become more like what I worship. Him. “Worship is saying: I know what will satisfy me.” It takes abiding in Him. It takes discipline, not in a way of rules and regulations, but in a way of choosing to surrender every day and every moment to Him. It is a decision.

But before the woman could abide in Him, she had to return to that well. She had to return to the place where she’d experienced being mocked and shamed. She had to return to the place where she’d experienced deep hurt. She had to reopen those wounds that hadn’t been healing properly. She wouldn’t have been able to return to the village, proclaiming the goodness of God like she did, had she not returned to the well first and met Jesus there.

And so we wonder why we keep getting stuck, but it’s because we won’t go back to that place and confess it to Him. We won’t let ourselves go back to the place and confess it to safe people. Instead we ask for Him to heal us in a miraculous moment, and we ask Him to take the craving or the coping mechanism away, but His way of healing has nothing to do with anything of the world. It’s a process. And it’s hard. But it is so worth it. I see it breaking in my own life. But it’s not just Him doing the work, it’s a decision I have to make. I have to fight for faithfulness. Because I know that in certain areas I might always face a challenge, but I know that as I continue to run towards Him that these things will no longer consume me.