Do I Have To?

I remember growing up wishing that I would break my right arm so that I wouldn’t have to do schoolwork.  Maybe because my cousin broke her arm and she told me that was the best thing about breaking it.  How many times have you asked your child to do a chore and you get the response, “Do I have to?”  That is exactly where the Samaritan woman is at, she had to get water from the well daily.  She had no child to send to get it. She didn’t want to go early in the morning when it was cool because of the other women and how uncomfortable they made her with their looks of disdain and whispers about her.  If only there was some way she didn’t have to get the water daily.

Maybe you have thought that the God would ask you to do something you really didn’t want to, like go to the deep jungles of Africa to be a missionary.  I love writing, always have. I had some girls in Jr. High that made fun of me because the teacher gave me an A++ on a paper.  To me, it was nothing more than letting me know that she really liked what I wrote.  Then later in life, I shared with some friends what I was writing about and they said that basically no one would be interested because there was already a book on that. I stopped writing for awhile. In 2010 when God said to start writing I looked for other means to do what He asked me to do, so I didn’t have to go through the hurt all over again. The Summer of 2014, it was obvious He still wanted me to write.

Just like the woman at the well, He gave me what I needed to do what I didn’t want to do.  He has been faithful to provide the words to write.  For the woman at the well she sought relief from having to do the daily fetching of water, yet He gave her Living Water that quenched and sooth her dry, thirsty spirit from all the hurts she held in her heart. He will give us the desires of our heart when we delight in Him. The woman so wanted to be healed from the hurt and pain of the rejection from others that when this Jew was actually talking to her she started realizing that there was something different about Him, something she wanted more of.  We may not always know what our hearts desire yet He does. Deep down she wanted to be healed from the hurt and pain and in giving her the Living Water, you can see later that her hurts were washed away by the Living Water.

The woman so wanted to be healed from the hurt and pain of the rejection from others when this Jew was actually talking to her she started to realize there was something different about Him, something she wanted more of.  We may not always know what our hearts desire, yet He does. Deep down she wanted to be healed from the hurt and pain. By giving her Living Water, you can see later, her hurts were washed away.

We don’t have to be afraid of what God might ask us to do because He will always give us what we need in order to do it. If it is not your heart’s desire to go to Africa as a missionary then He won’t ask you to go. If you want to be able to minister to those in a rest home then He will open the doors. If you want to be healed from the emotional hurts and pain, like the woman at the well, He will do that and more.