Day Five Art Gallery

Broke Free

$350.00

10”x20”x1.5”

"Sir," said the woman, "you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this "living water”? John 4:11

It was a journey she had taken for many years. The same route, same jar for water, same well. But on this particular day, one thing would not remain the same. She would receive the gift of living water. A gift that would forever change the spiritual trajectory of both her and many of her people. All because of her testimony.

“Doesn’t anybody love me?” With five failed marriages and living much of her adult life alone, it’s a rhetorical question that must have rolled around in her mind often. With her empty jar, she made her way into the city of Sychar. Little did she know at the time she set out for the city that before the sun set she would sit with the Son of God. She would also soon learn that her jar wasn't the only thing empty that day. Lowering her chin and eyes to the ground she heard the whispers of the people in the streets as they watched her walk by. She had a reputation and each whisper ushered her to the destination place known as Jacobs well. Arriving tired and weary both her body and soul were thirsty. Gently lowering the jar to rest on the ground she lifted her head. Her eyes immediately rested on a Jewish man who was also sitting at the well. His name was Jesus and unbeknownst to her, He was about to become her Lord.

Due to the religious and social restrictions this Samaritan woman would not dare speak to this Jewish man. So, Jesus spoke.

vv.7 “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her.

Can you imagine the shock and awe she must have experienced in that moment of brief yet very direct request? “Me? A Samaritan woman give you and Jewish man a drink of water from Jacobs well? Our people do not speak to one another and yet here you are asking this of me? By the way — where is your bucket?”

Isn’t that just like Jesus to draw out from us that which we need most, Him. The Samaritan woman was spiritually thirsty. And trying to quench that thirst in a broken world kept her returning to the same old wells. Rejection, Failed Marriage, Loneliness. Jesus knew exactly what she needed and he was there to offer her a one of a kind water that would forever quench her thirst; Living Water.

Oh, how I can see my own life in the life of the Samaritan women. Can you? What questions do you often find rolling around in your mind that leave you spiritually thirsty? What old wells do you visit too often? The space below is a where you can write down your answer.

Sychar is the city where Jesus and the Samaritan women met. Sychar means end. It was here Jesus ended her thirst; giving her the gift of Living Water knowing she would never thirst again. When her thirst for the things of this world ended, her salvation began and the Gospel spread throughout.

vv. 28 The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village.

What jars do you need to leave at the well today?

vv.39-42

Now many Samaritans from the town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. Many more believed because of what he said. And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

Father, we are a nation of thirsty people. Draw us to the well of Living Water today. Lift our eyes that we may find you patiently waiting for us to lay down our empty jar(s). Fill us with only that which will heal us; you, Lord. May the Living Water from our jar(s) of clay overflow into our own villages spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

Heather Lamp

10.7.22