If You Knew

Picking up a pen can be painful if you use it to write down your heart.  I do – I journal.

And so I had to write.  The other night I was with a few friends and you know how conversation can get tricky when you talk about knowing God.  Or Him knowing us.

Interesting how that topic comes up when things aren’t going well – we know Him when we need to blame someone for our heartache. And really . . . try and  define the hallowed mystery of sovereignty.

No one can tell another person what it’s like to know God personally.  It’s your life.  And so they see it – your life, I mean.  And this is where He loves to show up for others.

His desire is that we know Him.  It says in Isaiah, The Father longs to have us know Him better so that we can trust in the name of the Lord and rely on Him.

Because knowing Him means everything.  Everything.

Knowing God is the difference between victory and defeat, the difference between going to bed anxious and waking up with hope – and it’s the difference between life and death and heaven and hell.

That’s how important knowing our God is . . . so He sent Jesus to reveal Him to us.

And that’s what happened in chapter four of the gospel of John – it tells a story about a tired thirsty Savior who went out of His way to meet a tired thirsty outcast of a woman.  Since no encounter with Jesus is ever accidental, she arrived at the well just when He knew she’d be there . . . in the heat of the day, when the gossipers were waiting for sundown.  And right there on those pages we take in the beauty of the Messiah breaking through barriers in order to have a sacred conversation between a woman and her God.

But she didn’t know . . .

Until He offered her Living Water.  Not just a cup of water from a stale cistern, but a never-ending drink of God.  And it was how He revealed who He was – and who she was.

If you knew who I am . . . if you knew who you were . . .

The encounter wasn’t just to uncover her sin, He was there to have her meet His heart.  Finally, after five husbands and working on the sixth, she met the only Man who could make a difference in her pattern of brokenness.  A forever difference.

And she ran and told everyone, Come and See.  That’s it.  No complicated theology or dry-rote formula – just come and see the One who looked for me and told me everything I’ve ever done.

After she left her water jar, I’m thinking she stopped to write in her journal . . . Seriously.

She was desperate for Jesus and didn’t realize it until she found out who she was without Him. 

One line tells her story – Sound like yours?  Sounds like mine.

She unexpectedly found out who she was and who He was at an old dusty well in Samaria . . . and I unexpectedly found out the same amazing truth while hiding between my kids in an old dusty church pew in Bensalem . . . back in the holy day.

And me and her . . . we’ve never been the same.

Because to be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known.

And we are – we really are.