The previous post was published just moments ago, so if you haven’t yet seen the weekly assignment for the HEAL book and you are doing the study with us, don’t miss it! I didn’t want to wait, though, to publish my thoughts as I began this week’s material.
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Even if you don’t have the book, you can join us!
Take time to read John 4:1-41 if you haven’t yet. The HEAL book asks us to do this and it is a great place to read and prayerfully consider what God may be saying to each of us.
We each have a hunger within our souls that craves to be fed–a hunger for love that longs to be satisfied. This “love hunger” is inherent within all of us, but it’s how we respond to this hunger that determines the life we live. Will we allow God to fulfill the desires and hungers of our heart? HEAL, page 55
As you read the passage in John, consider what the woman’s culture had done to her…what was she doing there during the heat of the day? Why might she want not to ever have to come to the well again? You may want to look up some history to learn how “women like her” were treated in her culture to get a full feel for what she faced in her society. There was so much there…and yet…Jesus treated her radically differently than anyone else.
In what ways can you identify with the woman in the story? If you sat down with the woman across a cup of tea (or whatever your pleasure), what might the two of you talk about? How would your conversation be different before she had this encounter with the Lord and after? How had her life been changed?
What does this have to do with your HEAL journey and quest to change?
For what do you thirst? For what do you hunger? What do you turn to for the slaking of your thirst or the satisfaction of your hunger? I mean…really. Like when the lights are out, no one else is home, and no one else will know?
Are you happy in this place? What are you willing to do to change?
It has been said that change can’t happen until the discomfort (misery) with change is overcome by the discomfort we face staying where we are. Can you relate to this comment? How so? Take some time to ask the Lord to touch you in your thirsty, hungry places. Wait for him in silence to show up. Open His Word and hear from Him. He longs to show you compassion!
