Come to the Well

Leave it all behind and come to the well.

We all have things about ourselves that we surely do not love.  At least I know I do.  I know I always fall short no matter how hard I may try.  And during certain seasons in my life, I feel more unworthy than others.  Thank the Lord for His good news that I never have to be "good enough".  His grace is sufficient to cover all of my flaws and mistakes.  But still - I need to check myself before I wreck myself every now and again.

Sunday night we attended the Casting Crowns concert.  In one word, AMAZING.  The best concert I've ever been to.  But it was so much more than that.  The artists were so REAL and inspiring.  Mark Hall, the lead singer of Casting Crowns, talked about their tour name, Come to the Well, and preached a short bit on just how that message in the Bible changed his life.  It comes out of the book of John in the New Testament:

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

 ⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

 ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a])

 ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

 ¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

 ¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

 ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Mark Hall was making the point that Jesus was trying to make when talking with this prostitute at the well.  He was telling her to leave it all behind and come to the well.  She was getting her reassurance from a hole in the ground, what she saw as a well, not Him.  He was the true well that she should seek for fulfillment to quench her thirst. 

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I do that very same thing.  So often in my life, I seek reassurance and approval from "holes" in the ground instead of the true well, the Father.  I was actually just doing that very thing Sunday morning and got quite upset thinking about something I might have said that could have offended a friend.  I have struggled with this my whole life, trying to be a people pleaser, trying to make others happy, often sacrificing my own sanity.  But why do I do this to myself when He is more than sufficient to quench my thirst?!

So, here's to making some changes within myself - facing my daily struggles and anxieties head on.  When it comes down to it, those that I love, love me in return and that's really all that matters.  I'm tired of caring so much what others think of me and trying to get my thirst quenched from "holes". 

 

Yes, yes this is perfectly okay.  I am perfectly imperfect.  Taking it one day at a time in my walk of faith.  I debated on whether or not to even publish this post but I'm doing it because maybe this is the same message one of you needs to hear and I want to make myself accountable.

XO