Insatiable thirst; our need for intimacy (part 2)

posted on: 12.23.2011

© She smiles, She Writes
This is part 2 of this post. The same still applies! Grab your bible, tea and a journal. Let us explore the truth God has for us today. God reveals Himself in intimacy.
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” (v.25-26)
It is no coincidence that all of a sudden Jesus was alone at the well in the exact same moment this woman came to draw water. In the story, it is implied that this woman came to the well at an hour when she knew no one would be there. 'It was about noon' (v. 6); usually, people drew from the well in the morning or in the afternoon, when the sun wasn't deadly hot. I guess you could say this woman had a bad reputation and didn't want to be seen publicly, since the well was kind of the hanging spot back in the day. What I love about this, though, is that Jesus makes himself available to the woman. He's intentional about seeking her. Beloved, this is still true for us today! He is available and intentional in meeting with us in our place of intimacy, just the two of us!

That's the thing: we can fully know God when we're alone with Him. We can't know Him by what others say or believe about Him. That's nice and encouraging when we're in community, but highly embarrassing when everyone else is having a relationship with God and you aren't. And let me tell you, you can only fake a relationship with God for so long.  Intimacy cannot be imitated, only experienced. Seek God for yourself, for your need of Him... for who He is. Don't brag about God when you don't even have intimacy with Him. Consider this:

There's a couple who got engaged and are to be wedded. They're both believers and can't wait to see everyone at church to tell them about their engagement, especially the girl. Sunday comes around and the girl is telling everyone, literally EVERYONE! She's just bragging about the wedding planning, the ring and the groom-to-be. But after they leave the doors of the church that day, the girl is silent and ignores her fiancé. The guy brushes it off, thinking she'll tell him what's wrong eventually. Time passes. She continues to brag about him to people but is yet to talk to him again.
"Are you ok? Why aren't you talking to me?" he asks.
She replies, "Well, I am thinking about you a lot. That counts right?"
"No. It doesn't."
Sounds unrealistic, huh? The same is true for us when we talk about the Lord, yet fail to be intimate with Him. We are His bride, He is our groom. He reveals more about Him than we ever knew.

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town... (v.27-28a)
When we know God, we're able to leave our old water jar, full from the water drawn out of immorality & sin. We turn away from what we used to go to when we lacked and embrace God's forgiveness, grace & love. This is how we know we've experienced intimacy with God: we're never the same again.

[To be continued...part 3 is the last one!]

What we've learned so far:
  1. Intimacy is essential to our humanity; God designed it for our benefit.
  2.  He invites us to be intimate with Him, to be known and know Him.
  3. We are drawing from the wrong wells, wells that feed on our thirst and make us even thirstier. We must be confronted with the reality of who we are (why we're drinking from the wrong well) and our need for God (we were made to drink from the fountain of life). We must see the ugly in us before we see the beauty of God. Only then will we be able to run after a beauty that's not our own.
  4. God reveals Himself to me in intimacy. I must seek God on my own to experience Him.
  5. Jesus is intentional and available for us. We can approach Him freely.
  6. To brag about God, we must be intimate with Him; we must have a real, living, love relationship.
  7. When we encounter Him in intimacy we are never the same. We never look back. We're free from bondage, shame & condemnation.

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