Restoration: Living Water

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Photo Credit: Flickr User CinCool, Creative Commons

Do you know what it feels like to go to the well at noon? Yes, but I haven’t felt like that for a long time now. I answered this question in my heart as Pastor VanTil shared the message based on John 4:6-26, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. I began to wonder if I had really overcome my sin and shame, if I had really encountered Jesus and experienced his refreshment and restoration. But then the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart and reminded me that, yes, I had dealt with the sin and shame of my past, but what about my present struggles and sins?

Instead of allowing Jesus’s living water to continue working in my life, I have reached a place of complacency and apathy. I seek daily satisfaction and fulfillment through material things such as my education, career, financial status, and role as a wife and mother. My wells or cisterns—the things that keep drawing me away from true restoration through Jesus—are less obvious now than they were in my past, but they do still exist. I have created my own broken cisterns that cannot hold water or provide lasting refreshment and restoration.

As Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Just like the Samaritan woman searched for fulfillment through the many men in her life, I too search for satisfaction and define myself in terms of what I can offer the world. The first question that people often ask when they first meet one another is, “What do you do for a living?” Even as Christians we are quick to define each other based on occupation, education, financial status, or other material factors, when in reality, we are defined by the love of Christ. I love this assurance from Galatians 3:26-29:

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

When we return to those wells in life again and again—whether it’s finding our satisfaction in relationships, our identity in an addiction, or our worth in the reflection in the mirror—remember instead that God gave us a well of living water. He called us as his children to be defined by his love that refreshes and restores us to who we were created to be. We no longer are slaves to our sin, but are free from shame and are loved unconditionally by a God who purposefully pursues us, even when we are undesirable.

For further reflection on this week’s message, check out The Well by Casting Crowns.

[Megan Stephenson is a recent graduate of Grand Valley State University and works for a private education group in Grand Rapids as an Assistant Registrar. She loves spending time with her husband, Ben, trying out new breweries, restaurants, and local attractions. She also self-identifies as a crazy cat lady, despite owning no cats of her own, thanks to her loving and allergic husband.]