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It Doesn’t Take a Wishing Well

Mark Miller

Oct 4, 2024

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How
can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

The Samaritan woman had gone to the well in the middle of the day, a time when she
didn’t expect anyone else to be there. She knew the other women gossiped about her,
after all she had had five husbands and was now living with yet another guy. She
probably wished things had been different, but that was all water over the dam. She
couldn’t undo her past by wishing it away.

When Jesus asks her for a drink, she can’t believe it. She was a Samaritan and Jesus
was a Jew, and all she had experienced from Jews was rejection. Then he mentions
her failures at marriage and she feels even worse. But Jesus doesn’t reject her. He
offers her, not water from a well, but water from himself, a spring of living water that
wells up to eternal life.

How do you think that encounter at the well changed the story she told herself? The
others might gossip but Jesus showed her respect, even honoring her with a request for
water. We might wish our past was different. But the past is not what defines us. It’s
our future with Jesus that matters. No wonder this encounter turned this woman from
someone ashamed to be around other people, to one of the first bold evangelist for
Jesus. (“Many of the Samaritans from town believed him because of the woman’s
testimony…) - John 4:39

Tell yourself: No matter your past, you can be bold for Jesus.

Mark Miller
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