There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” John 4:7–10
Dear Lord Jesus, you spoke these inviting words of hope to a broken woman trying her very best to keep her distance from you. She’d been on a quest to find life in the arms of men, many men—sequential love affairs, trying to fill a void you alone can fill. The more she tried to evade your gaze, the more you simply applied your grace. She ran; you pursued. She danced around; you stopped the music. How I praise you that you came to seek and save the lost, not just broadcast an offer from the distance.
Though the details of our stories are different from this nameless Samaritan woman, we employ the same foolish strategy: playing games with you, like hide-and-seek, only we do all the hiding and you do all the seeking. How we wish this was only a part of our past, but we still default to this same insanity. The depth of our unbelief, stubbornness and pride are staggering.
Jesus, deliver us from grace allergies—living with an aversion to the gospel. Why we choose broken cisterns, dumb idols, and self-help over your love is sheer madness and crazy-making. Grace is for sinners, not for pretenders, posers, and performers. You mean to heal us, not harm us; embrace us, not embarrass us; succor us with compassion, not shame us with contempt.
So, Jesus, once again we bring our real thirst to you today. We bring our penchant to avoid you. We bring our allergic reactions to the gospel. We bring our excuse making, our unbelief, our pride, our self-righteousness. We bring that part of us that would rather help others discover your grace than partake of it for ourselves.
We ask you for a fresh imbibing of living water, sufficient for the needs of our hearts and the demands of this day. May this be a twenty-four-hour period in which we spontaneously join the chorus of many others who are singing, “Come see the man who told me everything I ever did, and he still loves me and is bent on my freedom. Certainly this is the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord. . . . He is Jesus!” So very Amen we pray, in your pursuing and all-satisfying name. Amen.