The Cost of Freedom

Jesus yearns to meet us where we live—in the real world of frustration, disappointment, and anger resulting from overdue bills, bypassed promotions, failed marriages, rude bosses, expensive auto repairs, unemployment, and many other issues. Jesus desires for us to be aware of the spiritual battle surrounding us. To be aware of the sly, sophisticated attacks Satan enjoys prodding us with as he tries to lure our selfishness into action.

Jesus loves you, accepts you, and delights in an honest relationship with you. He seeks to give you a new heart, which refers to the process of forming your character into what He desires. Have you welcomed this kind of honest, open relationship with Jesus that leads you to real freedom??

In a conversation Jesus had with a woman beside a well, He illustrated the importance of an honest, open, soul-searching relationship with Him. The following represents a paraphrased present-tense account of Jesus’ encounter with that woman. The story about the woman at the well can be found in chapter four of the Gospel of John.???

Jesus waits at a well in Samaria for His disciples to return from a food-buying excursion into town. Sitting alone, He takes time to think and review recent events regarding how some religious leaders intentionally created division between His disciples and the disciples of John the Baptist.?????????

Then, the sound of footsteps interrupts His solitude. Looking up, He makes a visor with His hand to shield His eyes from the sun high in the sky and spots a woman approaching. She is alone and carries a water pot. The woman, catching a glimpse of a man she does not know, dressed in Jewish fashion, keeps her eyes down and does not want to engage in conversation.???

The woman has come to the well for one purpose— water. She made the journey during the hottest part of the day to avoid the crowds of women who come to the well during the cooler hours of the morning. As she fills her water pot, Jesus decides to break the awkward silence with a request. He asks her, “Will you give me a drink?”

The woman stops, looks at Jesus, and reveals her surprise: “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” She designed this comment to make Jesus defensive, yet her words do not achieve her desired outcome. Jesus deflects her words by saying, “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.” She continues to try and wrestle Him with her words into a defensive position by stating, “You don’t even have anything to draw with. How can you give me living water?”???????

Looking down at the well, Jesus speaks again. “With this water you will get thirsty again, but I can give you living water that will become a fountain of fresh water in your soul that yields eternal life.” With that the woman tightens her eyebrows and, with a hint of curiosity in her voice, retorts, “Well then, give me this living water so I’ll never get thirsty and won’t have to come to this well!” With deep, penetrating eyes, Jesus looks at her and, with a compassionate tone in His voice, tells her, “Go call your husband to come and meet me.” The blank expression on her face exposes how an unseen force just struck hard at her heart. Fighting back the flood of emotions and hoping to ward off further inquiry, she slowly says in a soft voice, “I have no husband.”?????????????

Jesus commends her honesty and reveals what else He knows. “You have had five husbands,” He tells her, “and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” Like an unfaithful husband standing before his wife holding a hotel room receipt she found in the trash or a teenager looking at his mother holding the bag of dope she found in his sock drawer, the truth about the woman at the well just got exposed.??

Reacting to the forcefulness of His honesty with an effort to redirect the flow of conversation, she turns to a contemporary controversy about worship. Yet, Jesus refuses to become defensive. Instead, He sums up His view of the controversy in five words, “Worship in spirit and truth.”

The conversation has not been going as the woman expected. A strange excitement has been building in her heart, soothing her deep pain. She has felt acceptance, love, and compassion, even though Jesus knows all about her past, her unhealthy choices, and her ugly mistakes. With a sparkle of hope in her eyes, she says, “I know that Messiah is coming. When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

Jesus looks into her eyes, the window of her soul and says, “I who speak to you am He.” Just then, the disciples break into the scene. Their arrival halts the woman’s one-on-one time with her Creator before she can respond to His last comment. What does the woman do next? She leaves her water pot at the well and hurries into the city to tell others about the man she encountered.

The woman at the well found freedom, not condemnation in her honest talk with Jesus. The same woman who avoided others by coming to the well at noon went into town, proclaiming, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did” (John 4:29). Now, for clarity, did Jesus tell her all the things that she ever did in that short conversation? No, obviously not. Yet she was convinced that He could have done so and that what He said summed up the truth about her life.

Why did this woman get so excited about an encounter with a man who told her all things she ever did? Would such an encounter excite you if it meant the total exposure of all the things that you ever did? Do you want everyone—or, sometimes, even anyone (even Jesus) —to know all things you have done??

How did the people of the town respond after they heard from the man who knows all? They told the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (John 4:42, NIV).

The woman at the well grasped a great truth: the successful life Jesus has for us can unfold as we are willing to be honest with Him about our real desires. The freedom He offers us comes at the cost of being honest about our desire to use our wisdom to light our path. Yet, the cost of using our wisdom far exceeds the cost of understanding how our wisdom can lead us into darkness.

The woman at the well found true freedom through the discomfort of self-realization in an encounter with Jesus, the King of Kings. It’s vital for us to ask for Jesus’ help to be honest with Him about our real motives and desires because then He can reason with us. If we defend our wisdom, we will have difficulty embracing His wisdom as the light for our path.