Episode #248 - Choices

Finding the Savior in our daily walk

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Welcome to episode #248 – Choices.  I am your host Damon Socha. 

There she was walking slowly towards the well.  Lost in thought and the morning of chaos at least she was alone.  She was alone more and more often.  Life had not been kind to her.  Her mind was on the chores of the day and how she really did not want to face them.  The walk to the well was at least a break from life.  A life she would have to return to face eventually.  Slowly as she approached the well she suddenly saw a figure sitting.  It appeared that he was waiting for someone.  She thought about turning around.  She wasn’t in the mood for a conversation.  She stopped and then moved forward.  She had to have the water or life would become even more difficult.  Her companion had left after they had fought terribly that morning.  He would be back and probably in no mood to hear that she hadn’t even gotten the water they needed.  The arguments had become increasingly more difficult for her.  And her companion was staying out later and later.  How did it come to this?  She was exhausted terribly depressed and thinking about continuing her daily walk further out into the wilderness.  She had been through one relationship after another, struggling to find any resemblance of a happy life.  Today just seemed to be the culmination of years of struggle physical, mental and emotional.  She really wasn’t even trying to find happiness any more.  She was just avoiding misery.

She returned to the stranger who hadn’t moved as she approached the well.  She could tell he was Jewish.  Just another insult to her day.  Hopefully, he wouldn’t say anything and she could just get the water and leave.  As she approached she bowed her head so that she didn’t make eye contact and slowly lowered the pail into the water.  She could not hear any movement.  As she drew the water and lifted it to the surface of the well, the man spoke.  It startled her a little. What had he asked?

“Give me to drink” were his words.  A little concerned about the nature of his request and a little annoyed that he asked.  She said, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?”  Had he not seen her clothing?  Had he not seen where she had come?  She had hoped that by making clear their antagonistic relationship, the conversation would be over.  The pail was now at the top of the well and she was beginning to fill her pouches.

“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.”

What is he saying? Gift of God and living water. That doesn’t make any sense.  Who is this person?  And what does he want.  Why is he talking to me?

“Look, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?” Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?”  Funny she had mentioned Jacob in her response.  She hadn’t thought of herself as Jacob’s daughter for some time.  She had been casted into a furnace of affliction most of her life and a good portion of it had nothing to do with her own choices.  Life had a funny way of choosing people to suffer and she apparently was one of them.  Her first husband was the love of her life.  He had passed after only a couple of years.  Depression and anxiety set in and she had bounced from one husband to another until she had ended up where she now lived.  He wasn’t always kind but he did take care of her.

She had hoped that her somewhat sarcastic retort to this man would have caused him to leave it alone and let her leave without further conversation.

Then the reply came, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 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.”

Again she quickly replied a little sarcastically and without much thought. “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”  She rolled her eyes a little at him.

Then came his reply and it stung deeply. “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.”  Those few words created a defiant fire in her soul.

“I have no husband.” She said.  There see what you do with that.  Is he going to ask me to bring my boyfriend?

He paused and looked deeply in her eyes.  She didn’t see hate or contempt.  She could see that he was trying to incite her anger.  His eyes spoke of something different.  She felt sudden drawn to him.

“Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.”

While his words should have caused greater grief, she didn’t feel grief.  She felt peace from him.

“Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”

She wanted to know more from him but really didn’t know where to start and so she said that thing that she knew about Jewish and Samaritan worship.

“Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 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. For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth.”

His response further deepened her desire to understand him.  To know who he was.  She knew that a Messiah would come and she did believe that he would.  Although she doubted that a Messiah would ever talk to her.  She was outcast and downtrodden by her problems and illness.  Her life had been a terrible struggle and sometimes her choices were not the best.  But she did believe that a Messiah would come and would speak to the people.  She only hoped to be a small part of it.  That is if he would accept her.  Perhaps he would know the messiah or if he had come.  That would at least be something she could hold onto.

“I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.”  She said. Hoping that by chance he might know or could tell her of the Messiah.

Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

These words struck like a lightening bolt to her soul.  She knew it was him.  She knelt down and poured some water for him.  He asked her to sit down next to him and they conversed.  This woman of Samaria who had struggled all her life was in the presence of the Savior.  His very presence was enough to heal the wounds she had suffered.  As the time passed, she could see the Savior’s disciples returning. She stood kissed his check and left with tears of joy streaming down her face.

And so it was that the Savior of the world chose in that moment to reveal himself to a woman of Samaria.  We don’t even know her name.  Yet he chose this wonderful woman who had struggled deeply in her life to be his witness.  She who had five husbands and was now just surviving was chosen.  Called up from a bed of affliction to be a witness of the Savior’s mission to her people.  I doubt that her difficulties erased themselves at that very moment.  In fact, new ones likely faced her.  Her life was no different in experience or situation as when she had come to the well.  However, with three words “I am he" and a spiritual moment in time she was transformed.  Her life experience was not altered but her perspective was.

This moment at the well with the Savior and this wonderful woman as always been a powerful story to me.  While we don’t know the extent of her difficulties and why she had five husbands and was living with someone out of wedlock, we know that her life story was like a collision of choices made and unavoidable circumstances, events in time brought upon us through no fault of our own that bring difficult, trying circumstances to occur.  We are made up of our choices and our reasons for action.  Sometimes our choices create consequences and we pay a price.  We may not like it but we can accept it.  Many times circumstances and events come into our lives where we did not have a choice to accept or reject the consequences.  We suffer through no fault of our own.  We struggle through even the basic tasks of life wondering where the Savior is in all of this misery.  Why would he allow for us to experience anything such as mental or emotional illness.  Why have us suffer through genetic desires that contradict the commandments?  Why make us live in a body that doesn’t work as it should mentally, emotionally or physically?

I have said it before and I will say it again.  It makes no sense and lacks even the faintest die of justice to place someone in such a high stakes plan of salvation and then give them weaknesses contrary to the nature of happiness and seemingly contrary to winning.  It is like telling a runner to win a race, but you take his shoes and tie his hands to his sides.  If winning is what you want then perhaps providing better shoes would make more sense.  And yet here we are, shoes nowhere to be found and our hands tied together running this race arguing that this makes no sense.  And then in the middle of the race when you feel so far behind it isn’t worth running any more, he shows up.  He doesn’t give you shoes but he does untie your hands.  He encourages you to keep running, keep working and the winning will come.  He runs with you a while, he encourages you.  Converses with you.  Comforts you and gets you back into the race.  You still have no shoes and while he gives no answers for the shoes, he does strengthen your feet.

And so like the woman, we are likely to find ourselves at times walking a lonely well-worn path to the well.  We are not expecting anything more than water.  Yet he is there waiting for us to come.  Wanting to comfort us, encourage us, witness to us.  That day will come to each of us and it is more likely to come during those moments when we least expect the Savior to appear.  Our choices lead us to him.  Just as that dusty trail led to the well.  We don’t always see that well-worn path as the choices we have made to get there.  We just see it as a path.  Something we do everyday.  In the midst of our suffering and our daily walk is where we find the Savior.  The woman’s life experience was not altered.  She was still living out of wedlock.  She was still living with all of the difficulties she had experienced.  Nothing had really changed for her, except she found acceptance, love and a Savior waiting for her when she least expected it but most needed it.

We will find the Savior sitting, waiting for us to come and find him.  We do not need to look beyond our daily path, our weekly chores, our faults, our weaknesses.  We do not need to have a neatly tailored life.  We do not need to overcome our weaknesses, become perfected or even be entirely ready for him.  He will be there when you least expect it but most need it.  The answer to how the Savior justifies the weaknesses and trials in our lives is actually quite simple.  He makes up the difference.  He cannot place us in a condition, in this emotional wasteland called mental and emotional illness without providing for mercy and grace to make up for the weakness he has allowed.  He provides the atonement to balance those scales.  If we are called to run the race without shoes and hands tied, then he shortens the distance to make up for the weakness.  Or he provides strength to run the race with the weakness.

What I do know is that he is always there at the end of the path waiting anxiously for us to arrive.  That is what he did during his earthly ministration.  He spent his time with those who suffered and who needed his help.  And so as we walk the difficult road know that he awaits us, sends us strength and encouragement.  He longs for us to be with him.  He revealed himself in the path he knew that the woman of Samaria would take.  He met her there and changed her life.  I know that he will do the same for you.  May the Lord bless you to see him in your path and to find him where you walk.  Until next week do your part so that he can do his.