The Jesus I know goes out of his way to meet with messy girls like us. My goal has always been to love in a way that says, “Please interrupt me.”

It’s easier for us to feel strong and put together. But, sometimes I think we are just faking it because we view neediness as weakness. But, I think neediness really is something we have need of wrapped in hope. My needs lead me to a God who knows what to do when I have no stinking clue what’s next.

Hope always rises. Always. There’s a beauty in allowing your life to come to a halt, and then a slow start that seems like a pace that is steady. I’ve learned how to slow down even though the wheels in my head are constantly turning.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in deep water and still somehow thirsty for a new depth in Christ.

My wheels have been spinning for months. Gosh, it’s what girls do. We spin faster and harder, yet find ourselves stationary. We always do the same things because it feels safer.

Women with an unsatisfied thirst will always look for something to fill them up.

 

A woman went to a well in the heat of the day for water, mainly because she didn’t want to be seen. Spinning her wheels in all the wrong directions, she chased after a love that wouldn’t last. She had heart-thirst…that condition where you drink in all the wrong things hoping to feel anything other than the shame you carry.

 

She was labeled a whore, but she didn’t look like that to him. Not to Jesus. He came too, at the same time for the same drink, probably just to meet the girl with the messy heart. He asked her for a drink. She said something like, “You really wouldn’t ask if you knew where I came from. You want me to scoop up water to quench your thirst with dirty hands?”

 

Jesus wanted water from her dirty hands. She was a woman accustom to giving men more than they deserved in hopes of feeling some sort of worth. Jesus had other intentions of giving her worth by accepting the only thing she had to offer him, a drink.

It was as if he was saying…

I’ll take that thing that you carry in your hands.

 

I know your list of lovers, and yet you were chronically unloved.

 

Unloved will no longer be your label. Beloved is your new name.

 

Your name is not “dried up.” No, you’re overflowing. Abundance will be your new companion.

 

The man you live with won’t even give you his name, but still he’s a taker from a woman who continually gives from her lack.

 

I’ll give you lasting water from clean hands. You’ll never be soul-thirsty again.

 

Later I’ll have prints with your name on it, pierced through palms, a sword to my side with his name on it, and the one before him, and the one before him.

 

But, right now, for the first time, this is all about you.

 

You.

 

Me.

 

And, your unstoppable thirst.

 

This is our Jesus, the one who meets us in our messy places.

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 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.[a])

10 Jesus answered 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.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

(John 4:4-18, 22-26 NIV)

I think about her sometimes, the woman at the well drawing deep waters for empty places within and I think I’m like that. Sometimes. I have a list of things I love; it’s too long really. I’m parched handing out cups of water to others with a distracted heart.

My roles become the lovers in the place of Jesus, I think if I just do all of these things well…he’ll be pleased.

But, I think what he wants for me is to keep coming thirsty to soak in more of him, more depth from wells that satisfy.

So, I clear my cluttered schedule and unwind my spinning, clutter mind for depth over accolades and accomplishments. I keep showing up because I know the power of a needy woman who is unafraid to show up thirsty.

Jesus went out of his way to meet with needy people. I want my life to be reflective of that. We think Jesus wants big things from us, but most of the time he just wants whatever is in our hands -even if it’s just a cup full. So just come as you are, needy and thirsty. And allow your days to be interrupted by thirsty people who need what you have to offer.

Much love,

Jennifer Renee

Linking up with Suzie Eller for #livefreeThursday