Are you feeling depleted, empty, and overextended right now? Has the weight of the last couple of years worn out your ‘want to’s.’ People find it hard to think about others while they themselves feel needy. That feeling lays a trap that will keep the one in need always needy.
There was a woman in Samaria whose life was floundering. She was emotionally bankrupt. The years of disappointment had swallowed up any hope for joy or better days. Have you ever been there? If you have, you know that you will begin to accept that it will always be like this if you stay there too long. Once you accept it, you unwittingly make plans to remain there. How you say? If you believe it will always be like this, you won’t make the decisions or take steps to change it. The result is you remain there as a willing participant.
In John 4:1-38, Jesus and His disciples were heading to Galilee, but scripture says that Jesus needed to go through Samaria. So Jesus had a need. When they arrive, it says that Jesus was weary from the journey. Another need. It also says that His disciples went to get food. Again another need. Lastly, Jesus is thirstily showing a final need. I’m painting a picture to show you that Jesus, though He was the Son of God, lived in the flesh as we do and also had needs.
Then we read of a very needy woman. She arrives at the well far past the time the women usually come. That is because she was an outcast. Her relational need was made evident. Jesus, in His need, says to the woman in her need, “Give me a drink.”
Doesn’t it always feel like people ask of you when you are in more need of help than they are? And isn’t your first thought, help yourself? I have enough problems of my own.
The woman did precisely that. She responds with, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” But what she didn’t know was that she would receive her help in her giving. Jesus answered her and said, “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.”
Her need was great indeed, but giving to Jesus was the answer. We mix this concept up all the time. The Lord asks us to give, and we balk at it. We feel our need excludes us from giving. But it is the giving that opens us up to receive. Jesus said, “if you knew the gift of God.” He came with the gift that would meet all of her needs. He asked her to give because He had already prepared her gift.
Jesus may show you someone else’s need and ask you to meet it even when you are in need yourself. In fact, the disciples arrived back with food, knowing how hungry Jesus was. They urged Him to eat and meet His own need. His response to them was, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” That confused them, and they said, “did someone bring Him something to eat?” He replied, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” In essence, Jesus said my greatest need is to give and meet needs before my own.
In John 3:16, Jesus says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” To give is to make the room to receive. God gave His Son in order to receive all of us. If Jesus is asking you to give to Him or anyone else, you can be sure He has brought your gift with Him.
Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” So give. Give with all your heart. Do the will of the Father and watch Him do the same for you.
Jaime Luce
For more on changing your life you can access my podcast on all major platforms titled: 9 essential steps you need to take to change you life today. www.youtube.com/watch?=WUPbDtkgO38
