John 4:1-10

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” 2 —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3 he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 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.”

Big View: Person of Peace
Small View: Perception – Presence – Power – Passing/Permanent Relationships

Lisa Strom
Rock of the Foothills – La Verne CA

Observation: While traveling in the heat of the day, Jesus takes a break at a well where he finds a woman most likely avoiding her neighbors. Breaking a short list of radical barriers, Jesus asks her for a drink. The woman in her shock has to ask, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” Jesus sees the potential to begin the harvest of a whole community through one of its most marginalized citizens. He begins a conversation with this woman, and through invitation and challenge, opens her eyes to the gift of living water.

Action: I am going to pay attention, intentionally perceiving when God is asking me to take the inconvenient road. God is probably often asking me to take routes that I would not chose because he has something for me that is not on my list of usual errands. I need to listen and obey those nudgings and take the detours the Father asks me to.

Also, when I am anywhere, especially on an errand I will look for the marginalized person to see where God might be at work. I will watch for the person who doesn’t fit in, who has lost their reputation, who doesn’t look like me or act like me, the person there to serve, not to be served. God is asking me to break down these social barriers and begin meaningful conversation, all the while looking for the opportunity to introduce them to the gift of living water.