Overcoming Shame: Woman at the Well

Almost every day, I will ask someone how they are doing or someone will ask me the same question and I go to thinking about all the weird answers that I have heard and can remember.

I have gotten responses like, wonderful, wonderful from Bro. Hendrix to fine as frog hair from Butch Judd. My dad would say, “I am a whole lot more like I am now than I was a while ago or I was better but I got over it.”

I am living a dream and it’s not necessarily a good dream.

Fair to partly cloudy

Fantastic

I have heard people say, “Not much”

My lawyer told me not to answer that

I don’t know, what have you heard?

Or better than I deserve. But most of the time, we really don’t know how someone is doing, because we are the biggest liars when it comes to telling people how we are. Is it because, when we ask, we really don’t care? Or is it that we just don’t want people to know when things are bad?

I remember when we were with dad for the last time on earth, I looked out the window and saw people driving by, one after another and I thought to myself, how many times have I met someone or drove past someone and had no idea what they are going through and my words or actions just might be the only chance to see the love of Christ.

Let’s read a little about the love of Jesus and the woman at the well.

John 4:3-29

What a great story! So many things are just not typical for that time. The time of day that Jesus was at the well. The interaction between a Jew and a Samaritan and the fact that they were strangers, man and woman. But there are some other thoughts that I had about this and let’s go through a few of them. Point one.

1. Jesus makes the worthless, valuable.

John 4:16-18

I Corinthians 1:28 in the message says, “Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”?

One of the many tricks of the devil is to make you think that you are worthless. He plays on our own emotions to battle against us. Some of us think that we are good enough and some of us think that we will never be good enough.

Here’s the deal, it is okay to be a nobody, because it is only the power of God in us that makes us somebody. It ain’t about you, or you, or even you. It is all about God.

This woman at the well is a prime example of the not good enough. She is at the well in the middle of the day when it is hot and no one is there. She is there, most likely because everyone else is not. Typically, people would get their water for the day, first thing in the morning. So, in the morning when it was cool, most of the women of the community would be at the well, getting water. She probably did not feel welcome because of her past.

She had been divorced at least 4 times. Women back then did not have the right to get a divorce. Only the men. 5 guys pretty much told her that she was worthless and undesirable and so because of her past no one in the town wanted to be around her. Maybe she was a horrible person. Maybe she wasn’t ever satisfied with the love from one person. We don’t know what the reason was that she had had 5 husbands and the man she was living with wasn’t her husband. Whatever it was, she didn’t feel like she wanted to be around other people.

We spend so much time looking in the rear-view mirror of our lives that we miss experiencing the true blessings that God gives us all the time. We should follow the example of Paul and forget what is behind and press on to the goal.

For those of you Lion King watchers, Timon and Simba said to put your behind in the past, I mean to put your past behind you. There was only one perfect person in the world and He died on a cross for the sins that He did not commit. Your sins. He died for your sins because you are valuable. But not only does Jesus make the worthless, valuable point 2.

2. Jesus makes the empty, full.

John 4:13-15

Revelation 7:16

We are a society of people that are rarely satisfied. We complain about gas prices being too high. You could live in Hong Kong where the price of gas is $15+ a gallon. We complain if we have to wait for our happy meal more than 10 minutes. We want the latest and greatest cell phones, televisions, computers or whatever. We get a what have you done for me lately, attitude? If we spend time in the Word, if we spend time with other believers, if we spend time with God, we will be filled. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

I read a thing that said when God wanted trees, He said let the earth bring forth. When God wanted fish, He said let the waters bring forth. When He wanted Mankind, He said let us make man in our image. If you separate the trees from the ground, what happens? If you separate the fish from the water, what happens? If you separate man from God what happens?

Adam and Eve separated themselves from God and what happened? It brought on death. There is a desire in human nature to be filled by God. People mistake that desire and fill that void in their lives with other things. But those desires are not going to be satisfying.

At the place that I used to work, we had a lot of recovering addicts, alcohol, drugs, gambling or whatever. It consumed their lives, but they were never satisfied. Some of them made a lot of money making and selling drugs. One of them had a nice house that was almost paid for, 2 new Harley’s, a boat and new truck and the only thing that wasn’t paid off was the house, but it wasn’t enough and they continued to make, sell and use until they got caught, arrested, put in prison and all of their possessions were confiscated and sold at a police auction. All because they were still empty inside. One more thing that I noticed in this story is that point #3.

This woman at the well never seemed to be satisfied with her relationships. She was looking for love in all the wrong places. She was empty and wanted to be filled but didn’t know how to get filled until Jesus showed up and told her how to do it. If you drink of the water that I give you, then you will be filled and never be thirsty again. What does that mean? You will be spiritually satisfied and your desires change. Instead of thinking you have to have the latest and greatest phone, your desire is to be with the Lord and He satisfies like nothing else.

3. Jesus makes the chained, free.

John 4:28-29

There are so many great stories of how God has set people free from addictions, shame, sin, anxiety, anger and whatever had control of their lives. Butch has a great testimony about how God delivered him from his addiction to cigarettes. I have a testimony of things that God has delivered me from.

The drug dealer/user guy that I used to work with, now helps others on their road to recovery. He and I have had long talks about how God has set him free from this addiction. Not that he didn’t go through withdrawals or that it was an easy road, but with God’s help he did it.

This woman at the well that didn’t get her water when everyone else was getting water probably because she felt chained to her past and was imprisoned by the things that she was doing, was set free by Jesus to the point that many of the town believed in Jesus because of her.

John 4:39

This woman was at the well in the heat of the day most likely because the other women talked bad about her and she was either ashamed or she just didn’t want to deal with them. Mostly from her own demise, she was not free to do things like everyone else. She was not free to make life easier on herself and come to the well in the cool of the day to get water.

Boy, oh boy, after she had an encounter with Jesus, she didn’t care what people thought. She didn’t care to be around other people and she was free. The chains of shame, of guilt, of mockery were broken. I will not say that some of the people didn’t hold on to her past and bring it up again, but she didn’t live in her past anymore. She lived in the present, a gift from Jesus that set her free. She had hope in a great future.

We can have that hope also. We can stop dwelling in our emptiness, worthlessness and confinement and we can be filled, valuable and free. It only takes an encounter with Jesus and surrender on our part to accept what He is giving.

God is the Great Transformer