The Homeless Woman’s Pocketbook
“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35
The homeless woman who sat before me tearfully sharing her heart and trials showed me her pocketbook so I would understand that it was crammed way too full with stuff to squeeze in the Bible I offered her. So many of our hearts and lives are the same, aren’t they? So crammed with people and stuff that the most we do is squeeze God and His Word into some nook or cranny, if we bother to give Him an ounce of space at all. Then we wonder why we can’t seem to handle our trials, and why our endless thirst for more people and stuff is never quenched. No matter how much more we seem to be able to cram into our already overstuffed lives, we still thirst for more to satisfy our dehydrated souls.
Flashback to centuries ago when a thirsty woman walks who knows how far to Jacob’s well and encounters a man weary from his journey who asks her to draw water from the well. Who knows how many times in her life already she has walked to the well to quench her thirst. But her thirst for more is not limited to the water that lies deep in the well. Clearly she has never truly known a satisfied soul, for it turns out she has had five different husbands and is now with a man to whom she is not even married. The woman’s name is never revealed, but the man who proceeds to offer her “living water” that will quench her thirst forever has a name. His name is Jesus. And if we repent and believe in Him, entrusting our lives to Him, we will be given an everlasting relationship with God and the gift of living water, the Holy Spirit of God to take up residence in us.
We can keep going to the well of this world, stuffing our hearts and lives full with all this world offers us, never satisfied, or we can fall down on our faces at the well of the Lord, beseeching Him for forgiveness in true remorse over our wicked ways as thirstily we shall drink of the only one who truly satisfies. Hungrily then we will feast on the Word of the Lord, the Bible, and find our fulfillment in Him.
Joh 4:1 When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,
Joh 4:2 (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)
Joh 4:3 He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.
Joh 4:4 And he must needs go through Samaria.
Joh 4:5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
Joh 4:6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
Joh 4:7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
Joh 4:8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
Joh 4:9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Joh 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
Joh 4:11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
Joh 4:12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
Joh 4:13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
Joh 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Joh 4:15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
Joh 4:16 Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
Joh 4:17 The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
Joh 4:18 For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
Joh 4:19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Joh 4:20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Joh 4:21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Joh 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Joh 4:25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.
Joh 4:26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.
Joh 4:27 And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
Joh 4:28 The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men,
Joh 4:29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?