If they only knew

More and more I find myself thinking, “if they only knew,” especially when I hear stories of people’s heartaches and bad decisions.

It’s a compassionate thought, not a blaming one, in reference to John 4:10 when Jesus is talking with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. She’s looking for physical water and thinks that’s all Jesus has to offer.

In the midst of their discourse, Jesus says to her, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask, and I would give you living water.”

She wrongly thinks the path to a better life is quenching a physical thirst, and she sees the obstacles as having no bucket and no rope. I find many people today also think wrongly about where the path of life leads and what the real obstacles are.

They focus on physical “thirsts” that are masking the true spiritual one. They often think the obstacles are not enough money, not enough pleasure, not enough comfort and not enough accolades.

But the truth is, the real path of life is our spiritual thirst being quenched by the Living Water of Jesus, and the real obstacle is self-centered thinking instead of God-centered reality.

If they only knew!

This Samaritan woman eventually understood that Jesus was the only one to satisfy. She was changed by meeting the Messiah, by listening to the truth and by being able to talk through her doubts, her confusion and even her sin.

My prayer is that many people who cross our paths would hear and see God’s truth lived out in our lives, that they would stop settling for temporary fulfillment. I hope that, in us, they would find a safe friend to discuss truth, doubts, sin and brokenness, and that they would know, really know, the eternity-changing truth proclaimed in John 4:42, “He is indeed the Savior of the world!”