**Several of you wrote and told me you were having problems leaving a comment yesterday. I also had some “comments that need moderating” on my dashboard, but there were no comments listed! I have no idea what the problem was, but if you had issues leaving a comment or yours is not showing, I’m sorry! Thanks for trying, and hopefully, today will be better!
In order to better understand this post, please begin by reading Part 1.
Yesterday, we left off with Eve having to process and deal with the consequences of her sin. We also discovered that those consequences are our consequences, as well. As she was “the mother of all the living”, what was hers is now ours. After having lived in the fullness of being known and loved by God, her sin left her with a “blockage” in her heart and the realization that she would struggle with longing for the approval and acceptance of other people instead of God. If that wasn’t bad enough, she learned that satan would also torment her with it (again, see Part 1). Not a good day for Eve and the rest of womankind.
I suggested that, at that time, since the fullness she had once known was breached, she began to start carrying a jar of her own making and tried to fill it herself. Handed down through the generations, women all through the ages tried filling their jars with their own efforts at filling the longing for approval and acceptance. Satan did as he was told he would do, and he taunted them over their need to be known and significant. So they succumbed and filled their jars with people-pleasing and motherhood and relationships. One day, a woman named Sammi (short for Samaritan Woman) lugged her jar to the well in the heat of the day, so she wouldn’t have to deal with snide remarks (the other women came in the early hours, while it was cool). Her jar was full of failed relationships, and she had quite a reputation.
It was there that she met Jesus, Who, we learned earlier, had come specifically to see her, even though she was considered “unclean”. He asked her for a drink, and she was taken aback, that He, a Jew, would ask her, a Samaritan woman for a drink (the Jews didn’t get along with the Samaritans). Then, He told her this:
“If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink and I would give you fresh, living water… Everyone who drinks this [well] water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst – not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”
John 4:10, 13-14 (MSG)
Sammi was all over this:
“Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty;
won’t ever have to come back to this well again.”
John 4:15 (MSG)
Can you imagine how this must’ve sounded to her? She would never be thirsty again, never have to come back to the well again, lugging her jar, dodging the gossips. But then, Jesus begins this discourse:
“Go call your husband and then come back.”
“I have no husband”
“That’s nice put: ‘I have no husband’. You have had five husbands and the man you’re living with now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.”
John 4:16-18
Jesus had come with more than a mission to save her. He had come to heal her. He cut to the chase with Sammi, because He knew what she’d been hiding. He knew HER. He saw that she was trying to quench her own thirst by filling her jar with “water” that still left her thirsty. Isn’t it the same with us? We keep dragging our jars to the same old wells that might give us some momentary satisfaction, but we are still found returning again and again. Our need for significance cannot be filled by our own efforts and we are still left with the longing.
Jesus gave Sammi some more insight:
“The time is coming – it has, in fact, come – when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the kind of people the Father seeks are those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in worship.”
She said, “I don’t know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we’ll get the whole story.”
“I am He,” said Jesus. “You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.”
And, there it is. “I am HE,” he says. She didn’t have to look any further. HE is the source of the water. HE will quench her thirst. She doesn’t have to try to do it herself. We don’t either. Not with relationships or sex, performance or people-pleasing, over-achievement or workaholism.
It was at this point that Sammi did something extraordinary. If you’ve read her story before, you might even have missed
it.
it.
Then, leaving her jar, the woman went back into town.
John 4:28 (MSG)
Did you see it? She left her jar. People didn’t just leave their water jars in those days; they were an important part of their survival. However, our girl knew she didn’t need it anymore. She had found the source of the living water that never runs dry. She, ran, UNENCUMBERED, into town (which, by the way, was filled with the very people she had been trying to avoid) and said this:
“Come see a man who knew all the things that I did, who KNOWS me from the inside out.”
John 4:29 (MSG)
He knew her, and it freed her from her jar, to start living, without guilt and shame, as a person of significance and meaning.
I think it’s important, as Christian women, that we remember that Jesus died to save us and remove the blockage in our heart that resulted from sin. His sacrifice HAS ALREADY provided us with an “artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life“. He made us and KNOWS us, and still died for us, which provides us with unparalleled significance and meaning. So, really, why are we still trying to fill our own jars? Shouldn’t we be living in that restored fullness of God, finding our meaning in the fact that we are known and loved by God?
Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to Jesus because of the woman’s witness: “He knew all about the things I did! He knew me from the inside out!
John 4:39 (MSG)
Sammi was transformed from a public outcast to a free woman of influence, as her witness converted many of the people by whom she was scorned.
I’m guilty of lugging around a heavy jar, from time to time. You, too? We’re sure to be tempted to pick them up and keep carrying them. Satan, after all, is on a mission of malice toward us. But we can make the conscious choice to drink from the well within us for which Jesus has already paid the price. If we, like Sammi, LEFT OUR JARS, we would be free, spiritually hydrated, and unencumbered to be influential for the Kingdom.
You are KNOWN, LOVED AND HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT to the God of the Universe. You don’t need that jar anymore.
Join me.
Leave it.
“You are KNOWN, LOVED AND HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT to the God of the Universe. You don’t need that jar anymore.”
Sounds like we are an heiress to me! 😉
Love these posts Melinda.
Blessings over you today,
Fran
A lot of truth crammed into two post! So much to feast on. I’ve long loved this story and thought many times about the redemption that came to this woman through the intentional “stop” of Jesus. We are the pressing “had to” of our Savior. He makes the journey every time, not just to save us, but to bring us relationship which always ladles both ways…
on our behalf and on his.
Thank you, Melinda, for packing your blog with his truth. He is so pleased with your pen.
peace~elaine
Boy do I relate to Sammi. Great posts, thanks for giving me things to think about. I think I have left my jar…but am now at that place where I need to really spend time with the One who can quench my thirst. He has me in this place I’m in to draw me closer and I do not want to waste it.
Thanks, Melinda!
-Sheryl
Very eye-opening/awakening post today!
This is indeed a periodic cycle of problems for me: to leave my jar.
Oh how much time has been used poorly! When I think of all of the times I had to clutch to it to feel secure, etc. it is pretty amazing to reflect on how far I have come…and how far I still have to go.
Thanks! 🙂
I’m leaving it!
You bless us by sharing God’s heart with each of us.
My jar just hit the ground……
You have such a way of displaying HIS glory in your talent, Melinda.
Thanks for the encouraging comment at my blog! That means alot. I should call my blog “blobblering”…A combination of blogging and babbling..:-)
Thanks for blessing and encouraging those who read your blog.
Prayers,
Teri
Oh how He loves us and adores us!
I am leaving my jar, letting it shatter to pieces.
Love you-
Jen
Try again!!!
I loved part one…I’ve chewed on it since I read it.
and
part deux….her leaving her jar behind…the very thing she counted on for life…um…good word Melinda…very good word!
blessings
Oh Melinda!! This is SO beautiful! “You don’t need that jar anymore.” LOVED this.
Blessings
steph.
Thank you for this encouragement! We don’t need those jars, anymore. Great analogy.
Love,
Sonya
Two beautiful posts. Absolutely beautiful. You’re right… she left her jar. That’s amazing. Thank you dear friend for such sweet insight.
~Donna
Wow! This really hit home with me! I needed that! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Blessings
Michelle
Thank you for that beautiful word, Melinda. I have wasted a lot of time luggin’ that thing around! xoxo
Michelle
Hi Melinda,
Great post over the past 2 days. (I have had internet issues myself so I am just catching up.)
I love your truths here….to truly capture them in your heart is to capture freedom!
You just can’t run when you are carrying STUFF can you?
Much Love girl, run on!!
pat