Discovering You Matter To Him

Maybe you feel that your life is ordinary, that there isn’t really anything special about it. Maybe you see yourself as broken merchandise, underserving of repair, and undesirable to others. Maybe you are successful but no one really cares. Maybe you see your life as just one big regret. Maybe you think you’re just one fish of many in the great ocean of life.

I think we all struggle with doubts about who and what we really are. This struggle may haunt some of us more than others. We have this idea, vision, or expectation about how we should be and how we think people should see us. As a result, we become our worst critic. Grading ourselves against an expectation that might not be realistic to begin with.

We often measure ourselves against other people. Measuring ourselves against what we see they portray and maybe not what they really are. This can become a form of self-sabotage.

There is a story in the Bible about a woman who too was struggling with who and what she was. The woman of Samaria, or the woman at the well. This story can be found in John 4:1-26.

In this story Jesus was leaving Judea and was on His way to Galilee. In verse 4, it says, “But He needed to go through Samaria.” There was something there there that mattered to Him that He “needed” to attend to. He arrives in a town called Sychar. Jacobs well is there. Jesus sits down by the well to rest and His disciples who travel with Him go to get some food. It is about noon time.

The Samaria woman comes to draw water from the well. Jesus asks her for a drink of water. The woman is shocked because it was not normal behavior for a Jewish man to ask a Samaritan woman for a drink. Because Jewish men have nothing to do with Samaritans, especially to engage in conversation with a woman. In verse 9, She says to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask from me, a Samaritan woman? “

Verse 10, Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Pretend for a moment you are going to a well to collect water and there sits a Jewish man that you have never seen before. He does something that is forbidden in His culture and asks you, who isn’t a Jew, for a drink. You question Him, “Are you serious? Look at me? I am not Jewish and I am a woman.” Then this stranger proceeds to tell you that if you had recognized the gift God had sent, you would’ve asked Him for living water. You might say, “Gift of God?! Who do you think you are?!” Then you would probably leave because this Man is obviously off His rocker.

However, the woman didn’t leave. She must of seen or felt a presence of God. There must have been something about Him that intrigued her. In verse 11 she says, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?

In verse 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, (14) but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst . But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

What makes living water special? If you live in the desert, water is a precious commodity. Especially living water or fresh water.

Have you ever drank stale water? It doesn’t taste good. It isn’t satisfying like fresh water that comes from a spring or a clean brook. Living water nourishes the body, refreshes the mind and lifts your spirit. You feel satisfied.

Living water is associated with the presence of God. In order to receive living water you have to depend on God because only He can provide it. You can’t find what He can offer you through any other earthly person or thing. You willing receive it from Him because you know you matter to Him.

When you depend on God you have to surrender to Him and allow Him to guide your life. This results in an overflowing of his presence in your life and it will spill over into the lives of others. The presence of God is all consuming.

Verse 15, The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

(16) Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband, and come here.”

(17) The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ (18) for you have had five husbands, and the one who you have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

(19) The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. (20) Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

(21) Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. (22) You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. (23) But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship Him. (24) God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

(25) The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

(26) Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

As we read on in the scriptures we learn that this woman has had five husbands and was currently living with a man or having an affair with a man who wasn’t her husband.

By the questions Jesus asked her, she confessed to her life struggles. We don’t know all the details of the relationships with these men. One might guess that she was looking to men to fulfill her need to matter. It could be that she felt she had made a mess of her life and didn’t know how to fix it.

She may have compared her life to others. Wondered what she had been doing wrong. Most women probably had not circulated through as many men as she had.

Her life situations had probably made a reputation for her.

She probably didn’t have too many friends. No one would want to be associated with this woman because of her reputation. Any friends she had would become the talk of the village as well.

Women generally went to the well early in the morning to collect their water but this woman came at noontime to draw from the well. Maybe she was trying to avoid the dirty looks from other women. The encounters with others may have stirred her own deep feelings of shame and guilt she carried. Avoidance, maybe was less painful.

But Jesus needed to go to Samaria. There was a woman there who needed to know that she mattered to God. Jesus knew the condition of her spiritual heart and what she spiritually needed. She needed a kind face that didn’t condemn her for her imperfections. She needed peace with God, peace with herself. She needed to know God would embrace her, and her worship of Him even though she was not a Jew.

She learned God could and would satisfy her needs. He could give her living water. She could carry His presence.

She discovered she mattered to God even though everything in her world pointed to the fact she didn’t.

Her surprise encounter with Jesus that day demonstrates to us how much she mattered to God. She mattered so much that she was the one that got the teaching and revelation that “God is Spirit.”

No one else but her.

Photo taken by Lorraine