We Don’t Find G-D as He Has Never Been Lost

One of the things I love about reading the Bible is that sometimes a story I have read many times suddenly becomes more personal. I can read the same passage over and over again, and then one day, a particular verse, a particular conversation, or even a small detail causes me to stop and think, “How did I miss that before?”

The story of Yeshua and the Samaritan woman in John 4 is one of those passages. Most of us are familiar with the story. Yeshua is traveling through Samaria and stops at a well. A Samaritan woman comes to draw water, and Yeshua asks her for a drink. What follows is a conversation about water, worship, sin, Messiah, and eternal life.

But I think there is much more happening at that well than simply a conversation between a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman. I think we are watching Yeshua demonstrate what happens when G-D plans to find us.

John tells us that Yeshua “had to pass through Samaria.” That statement is easy to read without thinking about it. After all, if you are traveling from one place to another, you simply take the route that gets you there. But Samaria was more than a geographical location. There was a long history of hostility between Jews and Samaritans. There were religious disagreements, cultural differences, and generations of distrust. Yet Yeshua deliberately enters Samaria and sits down at Jacob’s well. He didn’t wait for the woman to come to Jerusalem and find Him. He went to Samaria where she was.

Then the Samaritan woman arrives. Already, this encounter is unusual. Yeshua is a Jewish man. She is a Samaritan woman. And yet Yeshua begins the conversation by asking her for a drink. Too often we make the mistake of thinking that G-D only wants to meet people who are trying to find Him.

But that is not the example we see in this Scripture. Yeshua went to the well. He went to a place where He knew this woman would be. He started the conversation. The woman came looking for water, not for G-D.

Yeshua didn’t even wait to see if the woman would ask Him for something. He broke the silence by asking her for something. He actually asks her to give Him the very thing that she had come to get: water. Then, as they are talking about water, Yeshua seems to redirect the conversation, or at least it appears that way.

Yeshua tells her to go and call her husband. She responds that she has no husband. Yeshua then tells her that she has spoken truthfully because she has had five husbands, and the man she is presently with is not her husband. Suddenly, a conversation about a drink of water becomes a conversation about her life.

Why?

Because Yeshua was not interested in simply making this woman feel better. He wanted to make her whole. He wasn’t waiting for her to find Him, He had found her.

That is what Yeshua does at the well. He let this Samaritan woman know that He had found her. He honestly but lovingly confronts her. He doesn’t humiliate this woman. He doesn’t condemn her, but He also doesn’t pretend that her past doesn’t matter. He speaks truth, and He tells her the truth because He loves her.

Remember, Yeshua knew she would be there. He knew her story. He knew everything about her. He knew her past. He knew her failed relationships. He knew the things that other people may have used to define her. Yet Yeshua still went to the well where He knew she would be, sat down at the well waiting for her to arrive, and then talked with her. He didn’t wait for her to seek Him out. He met her where He knew she would be, and as she was. He was also honest about who she was and what she had become.

That may be one of the most important parts of this narrative for us to think about, because Yeshua knows everything about us too. He knows the things we are proud of. He knows the things we wish nobody knew. He knows the mistakes we have made. He knows the places where we have failed. He knows the questions we have. He knows the doubts we have. He knows the things we have tried to hide from everyone else.

Knowing all of that, He still comes to the well where He knows we will be. He still begins the conversation. He still offers us living water.

As we think about Yeshua’s interaction with the Samaritan woman, here are a few things we should not overlook. Yeshua didn’t meet this woman because she had everything together. He went to meet her while she was living within the consequences of her past. He didn’t require her to have all the correct theology. Her life was far from orderly and perfect. We have no indication from the text that she was even searching for G-D or for a way out of the mire her life had become. What we do know is that Yeshua knew that He wanted to find her.

Yeshua purposefully went to where she was, and when He did, she was willing to have a difficult conversation with Him. That conversation changed everything.

Maybe today you are like the Samaritan woman. Maybe you are carrying a truckload of baggage from your past. Maybe you have tried relationships, possessions, accomplishments, religion, and found that those things simply added more baggage to the pile.

Maybe you are on your way to the well today. Your well may be the grocery store or the doctor’s office. It might be the school your children attend or the place where you work. Or it might be the library or the courthouse. Wherever your well is, it is my prayer that Yeshua will be there waiting for you to arrive.

Maybe not physically or in a vision, but living in the heart of a person who, in obedience to G-D, went to your well and waited for you. That person may work at the store. They may be a doctor or nurse. They may be a teacher or lunchroom worker. They may be a librarian or a barista.

But it is my hope and prayer that, whoever they are, they “find you” and they start the conversation that changes your life. But please be prepared, because the only way they can share a message that will change your life is if both they and you are honest about the life you have now that needs to be changed.

You see, none of us ever “find” G-D, because He isn’t lost. What we do is find ourselves at the well where He has been waiting for us, so He can find us.