BEING OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT!

I have found from going on overseas mission trips that it helps to be "out of my element" in terms of location. For example in South Africa, I will admit it was a bit intimidating to think about being in a very poor and impoverished squatter camp where crime and disease are rampant. Add to the fact that whites have had a historically poor relationship with the blacks I was also a bit fearful of HOW I would be received.

As I was in my quiet time today I read this verse...Joh 4:6-15 Jacob's well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon. (7) A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, "Would you give me a drink of water?" (8) (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.) (9) The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, "How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jews in those days wouldn't be caught dead talking to Samaritans.) (10) Jesus answered, "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water." (11) The woman said, "Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this 'living water'? (12) Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?" (13) Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. (14) Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst--not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life." (15) The woman said, "Sir, give me this water so I won't ever get thirsty, won't ever have to come back to this well again!"

Notice a few things...Jesus was "worn out" from the trip and stopped to rest...He is human after all! He was at the well trying to find a bit of peace and this woman approaches comes to the well to get water and Jesus asks her for a drink. Notice how this seemingly normal conversation is used to lead to spiritual matters...that's a whole different blog! Jesus may have been tired but He was there "on purpose!"

The Samaritan woman knows that Jesus is a Jew and is shocked that He would even talk to her. Later the disciples were horrified that He was even talking to her. Jesus is not in "his element" according to this woman's worldview, and it's because He is in a place she didn't expect Him to be that she is listening.

Jesus goes on to share with her the "Living Water" and through this simple conversation with a "worn out" Jesus resting at a well in a place no one expected this woman sees Him for who He is! By verse 42 many of the townspeople came to know Jesus as the Savior because of this very woman.

My mind raced back to Africa as I thought about the women on the hillside in Kya Sands Squatter Camp. They had been belittled and verbally abused consistently by their white supervisors. They weren't big fans of whites, but they could, by their own vocal admission, "tell that something was different about us." They listened as we took an ordinary conversation about our kids and life in general and turned it into an opportunity to share Jesus with them.

Just as the woman at the well were thirsty, these women were hungry...again they told us. With all of the rotten food that their shack was literally built upon they had nothing to eat and FORTUNATELY we had no food to share. We only had the "bread of life" with us in our back pockets. We sat down in their small shack and we shared it with them and they ate! By the end of our conversation they said, "we are not hungry anymore. We feel full."

God's Word has the power to transform us and fill us. What are we doing in our daily lives "on purpose" for Him? We may be WORN OUT too just like Jesus felt but our mission is never-ending and our eyes should always be open and hearts listening for opportunities to share the power of Jesus with someone.

To change the world for the Kingdom of God we must get out of our elements sometimes and let people see us not for the color of skin or the stereotypes that we may have but for the love of Christ that lives in us! Let the see Him and all other things will be of no issue! May you be challenged to consider the possibilites of where and what you could do by GOING to that place in the US or the world...and then GO!