Devotion for Saturday, March 7, The First Week of Lent
John 4:39 | Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.
Jesus looked right through the woman at Jacob’s Well. It was a terrible moment for her, yet one filled with a strange new imputation of good.
The woman had said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “you are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the man whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.”
How do you do with some wise person’s X-ray vision? Usually I flee it. It is just too painful to be known. An old song goes, “To know, know, know you is to love, love love you.” I find it more often the opposite: To know, know, know you… is to be disillusioned. God’s X-ray is different, as we see from the Lord at Jacob’s Well. He knew her whole unhappy history, and that did not deter him. In fact it was the reason he wanted to speak with her and help her. Her clear need—for relationship as symbolized in the recurring daily need for water—made her more precious to him rather than less. His love underwrote his penetrating gaze.
That is the way God is with us. The more sorrow and failures God sees in us; the more God seeks to draw us to relationship with him. Right now, your flaws are your closest walkways to God.