It’s so easy to read the scriptures become overly familiar with them – so much so that we end up floating on the surface of the waters and never plunging into the depths of them. That’s been my recent experience with John 4 when Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well. Jesus asks the woman for a drink from the well, and the woman responds with shock because Jews never have dealings with Samaritans in the way they were interacting at that point. Jesus responds in such a stunning way:
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” (John 4:10 NKJV)
This entire verse is loaded with bread for the hungry, but I want to highlight the latter part of the verse. Jesus is saying “if you knew what God was really like, and you knew who I was – God in the flesh – you would be filled with absolute confidence and boldness in asking Me to give you a drink.”
The true knowledge of God – something that can only be supernaturally given and obtained – gives us confidence to approach Him. If we think our God is stingy, stoic, and disconnected from our lives, we are believing the thousands of lies that the enemy has spoken to us. When we discover that God Himself is full of humility, it empowers us to be like Him and to actually ask Him to serve us. A friend quotes this saying about God’s humility that I love to remind myself often: “if we can’t see Jesus coming to our house to take out our trash and to do our dirty dishes, we do not know the God of the Bible.”
So Jesus goes on to tell the woman at the well that she should be the one asking for a drink, not Him. And from that place of asking, He would not be miserly but would lavish Her with living water.
Do we have any idea how much of a servant our God really is? The gospels are filled with story after story of God’s humility. God becoming a human being and being condemned on a cross is the ultimate expression of His humility. When we ask Him for His presence, He comes in an act of His humility. When we ask Him to heal or provide for us, He does because He is a servant. Whenever we ask Him anything, we are essentially saying “God, come and serve me.” And His enthusiastic response is an eager “yes, I would love to. It’s who I am.”
His humility beckons us to become more like Him. As we walk in humility, we encounter Him because that’s where He’s positioned Himself. Some think that if they can grow in favor and position with men more that they will find the ticket to what frees their heart to find God. But it’s only in the depths of serving - when it goes against what our human nature wants to do - that we truly find Him!
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