Focus

Prepare yourself to discern what is and what is not of God today. Still yourself so you can hear how God is calling you.

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Read

John 4:7-26 (NRSV)

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.) 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

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Reflect

This passage is very intriguing to me. I find sometimes that I am the Samaritan woman and am staring Jesus right in the face and do not know it. Other times I find myself like Jesus, trying to spread his message only to find that people are blind or completely opposed to it. Then there are times when I see someone “preaching” and wonder why people are not listening.

From August to May I have many opportunities to see Jesus in the middle school students I teach. Sometimes I need to look deeper to see Jesus in them and to understand what they have to teach me, but usually I can see their pure hearts.

My wife and I once went to a Kiss concert. As we walked into the arena, people were standing on the light posts damning us to hell because of the music to which we choose to listen. I kept thinking, “Why can’t they see that we are Christians? Why are they judging us without knowing us?”

I challenge you to find Jesus in your everyday life, whether it be the young people in your life or even that person damning you to hell due to your music choice, appearance, or lifestyle.

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Pray

Dear God, help me not to be so judgmental. Help me first to look inward before looking at others. Help us to see the opportunities that face us each day. Amen.

Go with God.