The sinners {like me} daily journey from empty to full

I sat paging through years of journal entries reflecting on seasons gone past. Some marked with joy, others with sorrow. And some, as in recent months, marked with a hunger to be pieced back together. 

A hunger to be poured into my empty places. 

If you've ever felt broken and in need of wholeness you are in common company. 

Every day I long for more. I come to the Lord each morning hungry for wholeness. Before the sun rises I sit by candlelit with my Bible and journal in hand asking my Father to piece me together, again. 

Some days he offers a quick refill to overflowing and I move on with my day with joy. 

But I'm a work in progress and in deep need of my Savior. So other days, seasons, years, He gently leads me to finding His repair of my brokenness through a longer journey in His Word of wholeness. 

Those like me who have wandered the wilderness a time or two looking and searching, know that often the key to walking into the promised land is belief. 

Do I believe God is who He says He is? Do I trust Him?

His Word will always lead us to the truth that pulls us through the wilderness. 

The woman in John chapter 4 reminds me of so many of us. Wandering, longing, needing Jesus more. 

The Samaritan woman meets Jesus at the well. She comes to draw water at an hour of the day that buys her freedom from judging eyes because she knows the good christian women would have already come and gone for their daily water draw. 

Lord have mercy on us for being the judging eyes on the broken ones around us when we too are just as broken and in need of you. 

She comes with a jar because she is in need of a fill to satisfy her thirst. Only she does not expect to find more than physical satisfaction. 

Oh how often I come to the well not even knowing how desperately I need more than what I come for.

Jesus is sitting, waiting for her. He knows the hour she’ll come and He sees her longings. 

So He waits. 

Because our Jesus does not call upon us until He has waited upon us. Because Jesus love us so much to allow us to come to Him when we’re ready.

He asks her for a drink. “How can you ask me for a drink?” she responds (vs 9).

She is a sinner. A Samaritan who is looked down upon. He is a Jew. Looked upon as higher, more holy. 

Except she doesn't know that He, the Lamb of the world has come to serve not to be served. He has come to set Her free. 

He has come to set us all free.

He asks her for water not because He needs her to give it to Him but because He chooses her.

He sits in the heat of the day, tired from His journey and we see in the Scripture that He takes the time to talk with her. To let her know that He knows her. He sees her. Her sin is not hidden from Him. 

And still He chooses her. 

"Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”" vs 13-15

He offered everything she will ever need to be whole and free and live without condemnation of sin.  

Living Water. 

She begged Him for the living water He spoke of. As if all she needed was a quick transaction to repair her broken life.  

Jesus in His gentleness wouldn't allow that. He wants more for her. 

He wants more for you and me. 

He desired Her to know Him. To feel the pulse of His grace over her life. To see the warmth of His smile as a reflection of His forgiveness. To feel the freedom that His blood would purchase for Her. 

I can feel her exhaling in defeat when He calls out her sin. (vs 16-17) He knew her sin. I can feel her burning thought, is my chance at receiving this Living Water gone because now He really knows me?

And you and I can relate to this, I think. The wondering if Jesus will really offer what He says He can once He sees what our hands and our hearts and our hands have done.  

Then hope breaks through with these words in verse 21, “Woman,” Jesus replied ,”believe me,” 

He continues with a promise of a future where all will worship in Spirit and in truth. 

It's there we hear Him saying - when we most need hope is when we most need to worship him.

Worship takes our eyes and points to the life giver of the Living Water and reminds us that He chose us while we were yet sinners. Not because of us, but because of Him. 

He doesn't want us to reach out a dirty hand begging for a small portion in a single transaction. He wants our eyes off of wondering why He would be so good to us so that He can fix our eyes on the truth that He is good to us.  

He beckons us to come as all that we are. 

Sin seen. Broken bared. Hurt Heard. Vulnerable hearts in need of a Savior. 

And receive the fullness of Himself for eternity over and over and over again. 

Here his voice calling to you - 

I give myself to you over and over and over and over and over and over again. 

Never ending. The well never dry. For I pour my blood and my heart and my soul out for you and into you for all of eternity.

Bring your jar to me and allow me to fill it overflowing. Cracked and chipped and worn. Watch your jar come to life as a new creation in me. 

I will wait at the well for you. I will call upon you in love and grace and mercy when you come. I will show you your sin and offer you forgiveness in the same breath. Come to me for what only I can give you. I long to give to you. 

I choose you. 

Will you choose me? 

Will you worship me alone?

Oh for glory that He gives us Himself.

The Living Water to overflow our empty jars. 

Today, tomorrow and always. 

Are You Questioning Your Life? If You're Willing Dear Friend, Your Adventure Lies Where You Are

It was a last minute decision to make a quick stop at the large chain store. 

Just before we turned onto the highway, my husband saw the big blue department store sign and remembered he needed some car supplies. I offered to sit in the truck with our three little ones to wait. Truth be told, I just felt too heavy hearted to be lost in a sea of people that morning. 

Sitting there with my thoughts, I tossed and turned inside myself wondering at things that might never have answers. It’s wrestling with the why - what - where kind of questions that tend to lead me to surrender in my faith.

Why am I here?

Why did I give up on that dream?

What am I doing with my life?

Should I be doing more?

Lost deep in heavy thought, I barely noticed my husband who slipped into the seat beside me until I heard the swish and swoosh of the plastic bag holding his purchase.

We rounded the corner of the parking lot and as I flicked on the blinker, I noticed her. A middle aged woman standing in the snowbank on the corner of the busy intersection. With only a two-foot section of ground cleared off, she stood shaking on her little snow peninsula. 

Her sign read, “Trying to get home. Anything will help. God Bless.”

Divinely orchestrated, traffic was at a dead stop. The pause in cars allowed a pause in my heart. I starred at her and studied her as if she was a piece of beautiful art I wanted to understand. She weakly stood wearing old worn tennis shoes, tattered jeans, and a light spring jacket over a sweatshirt that stretched above her mouth to keep the cold from her neck. It was twenty-two degrees and breezy that day. 

She’s cold, I thought to myself. She’s…cold. 

For a moment I am ashamed to say that my jaded, bitter, cold-hearted, privileged, American, attitude began to whisper doubts. Did she really need the money to get home? Was she really that desperate?

I snapped out of my pondering trance just in time to hear God remind me…”Open your eyes, your heart, to see what she really needs.”

She’s cold, I pondered as I watched her shiver. 

“Will you give her the coat off your back?”  God whispered loudly to my soul.

Without taking my eyes off of her, I began to speak to my husband in a slow voice that resembled someone in shock. 

“She’s cold honey. She’s really cold. I think I need to give her my coat.” And without another thought I put our truck in park, right in the middle of stopped traffic, and began to hop down to the ground. Jake handed me some money and I jogged over to her while unzipping my coat. 

Approaching her, I gently shouted, "Where's Home?" She jumped. It was like the dear woman begging for help never expected anyone to actually help her. 

Lord, forgive us. 

Without any pomp and circumstance I simply offered her my coat, the money, and a prayer for God to get her home safely. I walked away after receiving her big hug, just as the tears began to form in her tired eyes. 

My husband teased me when we got home that it didn't even shock him - my giving away my expensive coat without a thought. He sees all my weakness and all the times I fail to follow Christ the way I desire to, but my man also knows that when I am most abandoned to Christ, I am also the most unpredictable. Because the work of the Holy Spirit is unpredictable. He is less about us giving when its comfortable from abundance, and more about us obeying in the moment to give what He’s already given us. 

God put a stop to my wrestling that morning by reminding me that He has placed me where He wants me, and He will use me how He wants to.

I get this wrong a lot. I confuse myself with a longing for more to give more. But God doesn't ask us to give from what we wish we had, He asks us to give from what He’s already given us to accomplish what He calls us to. 

The more I surrender to Jesus, the more I see firsthand that a wild, fulfilling life with Jesus is not about the Why or the Where or the What that we tend to grasp for. He doesn't need us to be in a different place, as a different person, living a different life. He will use us right now. He is here. Now. 

If we’ll listen in the places that he positions us, wherever that is, the adventures with Him will be endless. 

Tara is her name. She is trying to get to Billings Montana. What a priceless treasure she is. If I could do it over, I’d tell her that she is brave. I tell her that she is beautiful. And I’d tell her that the world needs to hear her voice and her story, because she matters. 

And so do you. 

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A Prayer

Father, forgive us for allowing our hurting people to not expect help when they ask. Open our hearts to love the least of these. The ones you've placed right in front of us. 

Forgive us for praying to you for help, never expecting our prayers to be answered. Help our faith rise up to believe in you, the God who loves us and hears every prayer. May we believe you for the miracles we pray for, and even more. 

Father, forgive us for longing to be somewhere else, someone else and something else than what you've willed. We surrender to your will and find JOY in the place that you've planted us. 

Use us. Restore the broken in us. Renew us. And make us into the iron pillar of faith-filled, Holy Spirit led people you made us to be. 

In the name of Jesus Christ whose blood ransomed us, Amen.