Today’s guest is Kathy McKinsey with some insight on the woman at the well. I first met Kathy through ACFW’s critique loop, and she’s been a help and encouragement to me, so it’s a pleasure to host her her today. May you be encouraged!

by Kathy McKinsey

The woman at the well from John chapter 4. I don’t just want to meet this lady. I want to sit down and have a conversation with her.

According to verse 39, she convinced many in the town to come out and meet Jesus. How did she do that? What made her want to?

I’ve heard lessons on this passage many times. Did she come to the well when no one else was around? Was her reputation that bad?

She seemed to come up with a question or an argument for everything Jesus said. Was that to avoid talking about her own sin?

She was a talkative lady. Jesus asked if she’d give him a drink of water.

Verses 9-11: So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you – a Jew – ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? (NET)

When Jesus offered her living water, she wanted to know how he’d get it, since he had nothing to draw water out with. She challenged him, asking if he thought he was greater than their father Jacob.

But she was willing to play his game. If he could give her enough water so she’d never have to come back to the well, she was willing.

Then Jesus started to dig deep into the woman’s own life.

Verses 16-18: He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.” The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”(NET)

No, she didn’t want to talk about that. She turned it into a theological discussion.

Verses 19-20: The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” (NET)

One thing I’ve heard taught about this woman sticks sharpest in my mind. She left her water jar and went back to town. The reason she’d come out in the first place. Something changed her.

We know Jesus was tired. But something he did, something in the way he related to this woman gave her a new purpose.

Was it a kindness like she’d never seen before? Did she recognize that here was someone who cared for her more than she ever dreamed possible?

When Jesus told her he was the Messiah, she believed him, and she wanted to bring everyone she knew to meet him.

Father, open my eyes wider. Help me understand your love so much more clearly, and grasp it so close, that I forget about whatever else I want to do and run to share it with everyone I can.

Verses 25-26: The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” (NET)

Photos by Clem Onojeghuo, mrjn Photography, and Nicolas Cool on Unsplash

All My Tears

Five women search for God’s hope through sorrow and deep troubles.

Meet five women who struggle with life’s deep sorrows. Beth fights to recover from alcoholism and to mend her relationships with her family. Ann doesn’t believe God will forgive her. Kathleen wrestles with a years-old fear and with saving her marriage. Cassie needs to learn to deal with chronic depression. Martie finds herself the single parent of the eight-year-old niece she barely knows when the child’s parents die in a car wreck.

See how God gives them the gifts of hope, healing, and love.

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Kathy McKinsey grew up on a pig farm in Missouri, and although she’s lived in cities for nearly 40 years, she still considers herself a farm girl.

She’s been married to Murray for 31 years, and they have five adult children.

She’s had two careers before writing—being a stay-at-home-Mom and working as a rehabilitation teacher of the blind.

Now she lives in Lakewood, Ohio with her husband and two of her children. Besides writing, she enjoys activities with her church, editing for other writers, braille transcribing, crocheting, knitting, and playing with the cat and dogs.

Contact Kathy at:

Kathy.mckinsey@gmail.com

Visit her at: http://kathymckinseyauthor.blogspot.com/

A side note from Emily: My latest post for Seriously Write went live on Tuesday. You can read the post, You’ve Got Talent–Don’t Bury It!, here.

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