Season 2 Episode 4 What do you reach for when your heart is thirsty?

There are things we reach for almost automatically when something inside of us hurts. Sometimes it's reassurance, sometimes it's another person's approval, sometimes it's control, sometimes we withdraw, sometimes we work harder, sometimes we eat or we shop, we scroll, we stay busy, we become useful to everyone around us. Sometimes we reach for a relationship, even one we know isn't healthy for us, because being wanted for a moment feels better than being alone. And usually when we recognize one of these patterns, we focus on the thing we're doing. Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I stop? Why do I keep going back? Why does this person's opinion matter so much to me? Why do I need to control everything? But what if Jesus is interested in something deeper? What if he's not only asking, What are you doing? What if he's asking, what is your heart thirsty for? Because sometimes the pattern isn't the deepest problem. Sometimes the pattern is simply where we've learned to take our thirst. And there's a woman in John chapter 4 who came to the well carrying a water jar and found Jesus already sitting there. Welcome back to the Wholehearted Woman Podcast. This is season two, the wholehearted life, learning to live from a heart formed by Jesus. And throughout this season, we're asking one question: how does a wholehearted woman live? We've been discovering that answer by sitting with people in Scripture and watching what happens as God forms the human heart. With him, we enter the place of unanswered prayer. What happens when I deeply desire something I cannot control? Can I trust God when I cannot see what he sees? And Hannah showed us something about surrender. Then we sat with Peter. And Peter took us somewhere different. What happens when life reveals something in me that I didn't know was there? Can I return to Jesus after I've seen something about myself I wish I hadn't? Peter moved from I will never to Lord You Know. He discovered that Jesus knew him far better than he knew himself and loved him still. And today we're going somewhere deeper, because now Jesus is going to take us underneath some of the patterns of our lives and ask, what is your heart actually thirsty for? John 4 tells us that Jesus was traveling from Judea toward Galilee and he went through Samaria. Eventually he came to a town called Sikar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph, and Jacob's well was there. Jesus was tired from the journey and he sat down beside the well. It was around noon, and then a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asks her, Will you give me a drink? And she seems surprised because Jesus is Jewish and she's Samaritan. And John tells us plainly that Jews did not normally associate with Samaritans. There was history there, religious division, cultural division, suspicion. And I did some research, and it's a really interesting subject to learn about why the Samaritans and the Jews didn't get along. It's really interesting. I hope one day to share it with you. But Jesus speaks to her, and I want us to notice something before we go any further. Jesus is already at the well when she arrives. She didn't wake up that morning knowing she was about to have an encounter that would change everything. As far as she knew, she was going to get water. She had probably done this before. She knew the road, she knew the well, she knew what she needed, she brought the container required to get it. But when she arrives, Jesus is there. I wonder how many times God has met us in places we thought were ordinary. And think about it for a minute. A well was a gathering place, and in our world, we'd almost call it the water cooler. People come for water, but they also encountered people there. And here comes this woman in the middle of the day carrying her water jar, thinking she's coming for one thing, and Jesus is already there. I wonder how many times God has met us in places we thought were ordinary, places that carried history, places associated with routine, places we had visited a hundred times, maybe even places associated with disappointment, shame, loneliness, or survival. And we thought we were simply going about just another day, but Jesus knew where to meet us. She came looking for water. Jesus was about to speak to her heart. The woman asks Jesus why he, a Jewish man, is asking her, a Samaritan woman, for a drink. And he says, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. She doesn't understand anything yet. She looks at the physical circumstances. The well is deep, Jesus doesn't have a bucket, so essentially she says, Where are you going to get this water? And then Jesus tells her, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. And she responds, Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. She's still thinking about the well, she's still thinking about the jar and about the physical thirst, but Jesus is taking the conversation somewhere else. And then he says something that can almost feel like a change of subject. Go, call your husband and come back. And what? Wait, we were talking about water. Why are we suddenly talking about life? Why are we talking about my relationship? Why are we talking about my history? Maybe because Jesus hasn't changed the subject at all. Maybe he's going underneath it. The woman tells Jesus, I have no husband. And Jesus responds that she was speaking truthfully. Yes, she didn't have any husbands. She had five. And the man she is currently with is not her husband. Now I want to be careful here. We aren't told why this woman had five husbands. We don't know if she was widowed, divorced, abandoned, or made choices she regrets, or circumstances were outside of her control, or some combination of things. We just don't know. Scripture doesn't tell us. So I don't want to turn her into a caricature. I don't want to make her the immoral woman at the well and pretend we know everything about her story. We don't. But Jesus does. He knows her whole story and he brings the truth of her life into the conversation. And he did it not to humiliate her and not to reduce her to her history, but because he's taking her somewhere deeper. And this is where I think the Samaritan woman's story begins speaking directly into our own. Because Jesus isn't only interested in changing what we do. He wants to show us what our hearts have been asking our patterns to provide. Think about that. If I struggle with people pleasing, I can spend all of my energy trying to stop people pleasing. I can read, I can do all the research, I can take all the courses. But perhaps Jesus is asking, what are you asking control to make you feel? Safe? Secure? Protected from disappointment? If I continually return to relationships that hurt me, Jesus may want to go beneath. Maybe it's what am I asking achievement to prove about me? That I matter? That I'm valuable? That I'm enough? That I'm better than? If I hide, what am I afraid would happen if I were truly known? This is why patterns matter, not because every pattern is the deepest issue. Sometimes a pattern is pointing towards something underneath. A pattern is a way of survival. It's what we return to over and over again. It's a pattern. But we can do it without even realizing what the pattern is. We just do it, we don't think about it, we keep doing it. But something in our heart is thirsty for something else. And I want to say something important here. Jesus doesn't condemn this woman for being thirsty, and he doesn't condemn us for having desire. We were created for relationship. We were created to love and be loved. We were created in his image. He created us to belong, to be known, to experience safety and intimacy and connection. He was on this earth. He was the Son of God. Yes, he didn't sin, but he knew and knows what we experience. Thirst isn't necessarily the problem. The question is, what has my heart learned to do with its thirst? Because wounds can teach us where to drink. Rejection can teach us to drink from approval. Abandonment can teach us to cling desperately to relationships. Chaos can teach us to drink from control. Invisibility can teach us to drink from achievement. Betrayal can teach us to drink from self-protection. Shame can teach us to become indispensable so that maybe nobody will leave. And after a while, something we originally learned to do to survive can begin to feel like a source of life. This is where healing and formation meet. Healing begins addressing what the wound is and how it's divided the heart. Formation begins teaching that heart how to live with Jesus. And sometimes Jesus begins that formation by asking, where have you learned to take your thirst? And there's another layer to this story because Jesus knows her. He knows every relationship, every disappointment, every decision, every loss, every wound, every sin, every moment she has wished things had gone differently. He knows every part of the story John doesn't tell us. Jesus knows, and he's still sitting there. I wonder if one of the deepest fears many of us carry is if you really knew me, if you really knew what I've done, if you really knew what I've thought, if you knew how angry I've been, if you knew what happened in that relationship, if you knew the choices I've made, if you knew what I still struggle with, if you only knew what I secretly needed, would you still want me? And Jesus answers that question without giving a lecture. He stays. He knows the truth and he remains in relationship with her. He speaks honestly without contempt. And eventually this woman will run into town saying, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Think about that. She doesn't say, Come meet the man who exposed me. She wants people to meet the one who knew her. That's astonishing. Because shame tells us if the truth comes out, love will leave. But Jesus shows us something entirely different. I already know the truth about you, and I'm still sitting here with you. And this is where Peter's story from last week reaches across into this one. Peter discovered that Jesus knew what he was capable of before Peter knew, and Jesus loved him still. The Samaritan woman discovers that Jesus knows the story she has already lived, and he's not afraid to enter it. That's what the love of God does. Love doesn't keep us from seeing the truth about ourselves. Love makes it possible to see the truth without being destroyed by it. And that changes the way we understand repentance. Because if I believe that my sin causes God to recoil from me, I hide, I defend, I minimize, I manage appearances, I punish myself, I try to clean myself up before coming near him. But when I begin to understand the Father's heart revealed in Jesus, repentance becomes movement toward him. Sin matters, truth matters, repentance matters, but the father's love doesn't make sin insignificant. The father's love makes repentance safe. Because the one showing me the truth is also the one offering me living water. Most Christians know the sentence: God loves me. Maybe you've known it since you were a child. You can quote John 3.16 like nothing. You know God is love. You know Jesus died for you. You believe it. And yet there can be an enormous difference between believing something with our minds and having that truth become deeply rooted in the heart. It's one thing to know I am loved by God, and it's another thing totally to begin understanding how much you are loved and what his love actually looks like. Because a woman can sincerely believe God loves her and still organize her entire emotional life as though his love were uncertain and distant. She can believe God loves me while living. I need everybody to approve of me. I need to perform so God isn't disappointed. I need this person to choose me so I know I'm valuable. Oh, I failed so God must have withdrawn. He must not love me. He must be mad at me. I need to make myself useful so people won't leave. I need to hide this part of myself because if anyone ever really knew, the mind says, God loves me, but the heart may still be running from well to well, trying to obtain what it doesn't even know how to receive yet. And wholehearted formation begins bringing those two places together. Truth moves from something I agree with to something I increasingly live from. And there's something else I don't want us to miss. This work of healing can become very inward if we're not careful. What's my wound? What's my belief? What's my pattern? What happened in childhood? What's underneath this? What's underneath that? Those questions can matter, but Jesus doesn't reveal our hearts so that we can spend the rest of our lives staring at ourselves. Look at what happens in John 4. The conversation eventually moves to worship. The woman speaks about the coming Messiah, and Jesus reveals himself to her. I, the one speaking to you, I am he. That's where this has been going, not merely toward greater self-awareness or finally being perfect. It's towards him. Jesus reveals the heart so that what has been hidden can be brought into relationship with him. The goal isn't simply now I understand why I do what I do. No, the goal is now I know where to bring it. The destination of healing isn't endless introspection. It's communion, it's relationship, it's abiding, it's discovering the one who is sitting beside the well saying, if you knew the gift of God. And then John gives us this small detail that I absolutely love. After the disciples return, John tells us, then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to town. Now scripture doesn't tell us why she left the jar, so I don't want to turn it into a symbol John doesn't explain. But as I sat with this passage, I couldn't stop thinking about the image. She came carrying a container. She knew exactly what it was for. She came prepared to receive the amount of water she believed she needed for the day, and then she encountered Jesus. She brought a jar to contain the water she thought she needed, but she encountered a love no jar could ever contain. She came to carry water home, but instead she carried the news of Jesus back to her town. Come and see a man who told me everything I've ever did. Something had happened inside her. The woman who came to receive began to overflow. And maybe this is another part of wholehearted formation. We aren't only learning to receive the Father's love so that we feel better. Love received begins forming the person who gives love. First John says we love because he first loved us. We receive grace and slowly we become more gracious. We receive mercy and slowly we become more merciful. We discover that Jesus can sit beside the complicated truth of our story without contempt, and we begin becoming people capable of sitting beside somebody else's complicated story without contempt. We discover patience and patience begins forming us. We discover forgiveness, and forgiveness begins to flow through us. We discover what it feels like to be known and still loved, and we become safer people for others to be known by. This is how the love of God begins moving through the earth. We receive it, we live from it, and then we re-present it. We begin representing the character of the one who met us at our well. His grace, his mercy, his truth, his compassion, his love, not perfectly, but increasingly, and that's formation. And now I want us to look at where we've traveled together so far. Hannah taught us, can I trust God when I cannot control the outcome? Can I surrender what I desperately want and trust the Father for even when I cannot see what he sees? And Peter asks, can I return to Jesus when I've discovered something about myself I wish weren't true? Something I did? Can I allow failure to become a place of formation rather than my permanent identity? And now the Samaritan woman asks, can I allow Jesus beneath my patterns, into my thirst, and receive the love I've been trying to find in so many other places? So do you see what's happening? We're moving deeper. Outcome, self, desire, source. The heart is slowly becoming less dependent upon external things to establish internally what can ultimately only be received relationally from God. Hannah teaches us, I don't need the outcome to prove the Father is good. Peter teaches us, I don't need my performance to prove that I am still wanted. And this woman at the well begins teaching us, I don't need another well to tell me that I'm loved. That's wholehearted formation, not independence. Dependence upon the right source. So let's have an honest heart discussion right now. When your heart is thirsty, where do you go? Not where you think you're supposed to go, where do you actually go? When you feel rejected, what do you reach for? When you feel afraid, what do you reach for? When you feel unseen, unwanted, out of control, lonely, ashamed, what's the pattern? And then let him help you to go underneath it. What am I asking this to give me? Approval, safety, belonging, relief, control, worth, comfort, some form of love? And then maybe there's another question. What would change if my heart actually believed how deeply loved I am by God? Not merely know it, but live it. How would I respond differently to failure? How would I respond differently to rejection? Would I still need everyone to understand me? Would I still need everybody's approval? Would I still be terrified when someone walked away? Would I still punish myself after I've repented? Would I still have to prove that I am enough? What begins changing when God loves me stops being only something I believe and becomes the place from which I live. So this week I don't want you to try to fix every pattern in your life. I just want you to notice one place where you reach for when your heart is thirsty. When does it happen? And don't shame yourself. Don't immediately tell yourself, I shouldn't feel this, I shouldn't need this, I should be further along by now. Just notice it and ask Jesus, what is my heart thirsty for right now? And then ask yourself, what am I asking this person, this behavior, this achievement, this control, this thing, whatever it is, to give me? And finally, ask Jesus, Jesus, show me what it looks like to receive that from you. And then stay. Don't manufacture an answer. Don't force yourself to feel something. Just remain with him. Because maybe wholehearted formation isn't learning to have no thirst. Maybe it's learning where to bring it. So I'd like to end in prayer. Jesus, you know us. You know every part of our stories, the parts we understand and the parts we don't. You understand the things that happened to us. You know it, the choices we've made, the things we regret, the wounds we've carried, and the patterns we've developed, trying to protect ourselves, comfort ourselves, prove ourselves, or find the love for which our hearts were created. And still, Lord, thank you that you meet us. Thank you that you don't shame us for being thirsty. Thank you that you don't simply point out our empty wells and walk away and say, figure it out yourself. No, you offer yourself. You gave yourself, you bled for us, you gave every part of yourself, you poured it out for us. Let it reach into the places in our hearts that still live as though your love were uncertain or not even there, the places that we still strive, hide, cling, control, and the places that fear being fully known by you. Teach us what your love looks like. Teach us to receive it, teach us to live from it. And as your grace and mercy fill the places that have been empty for so long, let that same grace and mercy begin flowing through us. Make us women who represent your heart to the people around us. Women who can tell the truth and love. Women who can extend mercy because we have received mercy. Women who can sit beside another person's complicated story because you sat beside ours. And when our hearts become thirsty again, teach us where to return. Teach us to return to you, always the source of living water. In Jesus' name, amen. She came to the well carrying a jar. She left telling a town about Jesus. And somewhere in between she was known. She was told the truth. She encountered living water, and she discovered the one who had been sitting beside the well all along. Maybe that's what Jesus is doing in us too, taking us beneath the patterns, beneath the striving and the reaching, beneath all the places we've learned to go for life, until we discover the deeper thirst of our heart. And then he doesn't shame us for it, he offers himself. It's one thing to know that God loves you, and it's another thing for your heart to learn to live as though it is deeply loved. And when that love begins filling us, it doesn't remain contained. Grace received becomes grace extended. Mercy received becomes mercy offered. Love received becomes love given. We begin to re-present him to the world, the one who met us at our well. So this week, when you notice yourself reaching for something, pause long enough to ask, what is my heart thirsty for? And remember, the goal isn't becoming a woman who never thirsts, it's becoming a woman who knows where to drink. So remember, you are seen, you are deeply loved, and the shepherd is still speaking. See you next time.