Car Chat Podcast with Amy & Jamy
Join Amy & Jamy as they chat in Amy's car (the glorious and overtly common white Nissan Pathfinder) each month and chat about one woman of the Bible. Women need other women. We just LOVE that God includes the lives of real, broken women in the Bible and reveals how he loves, interacts, and redeems them. We are excited to surround ourselves with this community of women and be encouraged as we lean into Jesus. You don’t have to remain alone in your faith even when no one is around.
Car Chat Podcast with Amy & Jamy
NT Episode 4: Samaritan Woman - Women of the Bible Series
We just love the Samaritan Woman (John 4). Her story IS the gospel!!!
She...
...was isolated. [We have been isolated from groups and have isolated ourselves from others with our own insecurities. One that's not so visible is when we isolate our emotions from relationships.]
...engaged with Jesus. [Even though it was an odd situation, she kept talking with Jesus. Slowly but surely, we see her defenses come down.]
...was no longer thirsty. [When Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah, she was no longer afraid of her story. It was the very thing she proclaimed to bring others to Jesus! His identity changed her identity!]
If you're feeling isolated or struggling with shame, Jesus invites you to bring your brokenness to him and experience the freedom of being fully known yet fully loved.
She is one of us. Who God was to her, he is to you and me.
Much love for you,
Amy & Jamy
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: NT Episode 4 - Samaritan Woman
*See episode description in the show notes. Review John 4 for her story.
- Coming Soon! -
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@jamyfisher
produced by: 4110 Ministries, LLC
Hey everybody, welcome to the Car Chat Podcast. I'm Amy and.
Jamy:I'm Jamie, and each month we chat in Amy's car about a woman of the Bible.
Amy:And we do this because our heart and our purpose in this podcast is to answer the question who is she? And when we do this, we'll discover these two things that she is a lot like me and who God is to her, he is to me, and we just love this community of broken yet redeemed women, both with you here listening and the women in the Bible, to learn about God's power and presence in our lives, and there's so many times that I'm just going about my normal life that God reminds me of the truths that we've shared with each other here, jamie, and I'm so encouraged, um, but lately I do want to update you listeners on kind of some significant things that are happening in our lives. One is with Jamie and her husband, who had a very serious car accident in July of last year, 2024. There had been on recovering from all those things now, and can you just give us a quick update on where Todd is at?
Jamy:this point. He's doing great. We're in the process of getting his prosthetic leg. He's already wearing it. He's already walking and driving. He's doing great, but we're still in the transitioning stage of that and just making the changes in life that come after a nine month rehabilitation from it, from serious injuries. But he's doing well. We're doing really really, really well he's. He's glad to be back. We have such a sweet new perspective on on really all of life and it's been. It's been really good.
Amy:God has been good to us in all of this hardship transitions are really weird and tricky, and an update on our life is that this will probably be the last car chat that we do in my car, because my family, we're moving. We're in Oklahoma now, but we're moving to South Carolina in a couple of weeks. My husband's going to be on church staff again at the church that we love so much in Columbia, south Carolina, and so we're moving. But Jamie and I want so much to keep connecting with each other and with you, and so we are going to continue chatting about women of the Bible, but we'll be doing it remotely across the airwaves or whatever waves it is to figure out what that looks like.
Jamy:I can always just go sit in my car.
Amy:That's true, we can do it from our cars, but I think we're going to keep the car chat name just because it's what we've had and we don't want to transition that too. But um, there's just a lot of transitions and I think our lives are full of it, and if you are grasping for a season in which there is no transition, I don't know how realistic that is, because we just don't have the control to manage all the things that keep us comfortable. That's right, and I don't want to be. Yeah, god is doing something new in each of our lives and I want to be present where my feet are planted and I want to be able to learn and embrace the new things that are happening.
Jamy:That's right, day by day, staying with him, walking with him.
Amy:So much of our conversations are about the woman of the Bible, and you do hear bits and pieces of us personally, but we just wanted to update you all on what's going on in our lives, as we are facing some big transitions now, right along with those of you who are too so. Today is the New Testament, episode number four, and we are talking about the Samaritan woman or the woman at the well, yes, who do you prefer? I don't know. I've called her both.
Jamy:I know I found myself thinking about it this week and thinking, well, is one right, yeah, samaritan woman or woman at the well. I went back to Sunday school, like to my little girl days, and it's a woman at the well.
Amy:Her story is found in John four, and here's a brief summary snapshot of her life. Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at a well and engages in a conversation that reveals his identity as the Messiah and the source of living water. The woman who was initially surprised by Jesus's request, for that is so precious. Don't miss it.
Jamy:So cool.
Amy:So we are going to dive into learning three things about the Samaritan woman, three ways to describe her, but I did have some interesting facts that were really pretty cool, jamie, that I wanted to share. Let's hear it. The first interesting fact is that it's the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and any other person in the Bible, isn't?
Jamy:that amazing. I know what do you make of that? Well, I'm sure it wasn't maybe the longest conversation he had, but I think the fact that it's the longest recorded one it shows the importance of what was happening here, of who he was talking to, what he was saying and all of the context is. So is so important too, because right before that is the story of Nicodemus. So you have like this really amazing smart has everything together, religious person seeking Jesus, and then you have, like bottom of the barrel, everyone looked down on, person probably avoiding, and I think those two stories together show the heart of God, the heart of Jesus, that he's here for all, he's truth telling all, he's inviting all, and so I think the fact that there's so much actual New Testament ink given to her story shows the importance that Jesus is listening and looking and searching and answering and and being the living water, being our, our answer for everyone so the second interesting fact is that the woman at the well, which is another way to explain who the Samaritan woman- was.
Amy:I always was curious what is this? Well, where is this? Well, and so it is known as Jacob's. Well, yeah, and Jacob had purchased it after he had reunited with his brother, esau. Okay, and that's found in Genesis 33. Because, if you remember the story of Jacob and Esau, jacob swindled his dad to steal away Esau's birthright. Yes, and Esau was so mad when he realized that this happened, asked his dad to reverse it. His dad said I can't, and so he was wanting to kill Jacob. Yes, and then Jacob fled and then Esau went away, and so it was this turmoil for decades.
Amy:Yeah, so when they reunited this is the place that he reunited with his brother he purchased this land and he built an altar there. And so this place and this just gives sweet context to Jesus meeting this woman, because Jesus knew this and really the the Jews would know that this well, all these things happened that this was a place of forgiveness because the two brothers embraced, esau and Jacob embraced. It was one of reconciliation, oh, yeah, and one of grace.
Jamy:We just focus on the fact that it's in a place that was bad to go.
Amy:You know, we forget that there was a history, but there's a history that they knew, and it was also a gathering place for the Israelites once they made it into the promised land for refreshment and for water. So they don't know whether this well was spring fed or whether it was just rainwater fed, but regardless, the people the Israelites knew that this was a place they could go to get refreshment, and so I think that those are all beautiful themes within the history of this place, yeah and this is where she meets Jesus.
Amy:Such a good fact. The third interesting fact is that this is the first time that Jesus tells another person that he is the Messiah.
Jamy:Yes, that is really really special because they were all looking for the Messiah Well, and he was very strategic. I think sometimes, if you just look at parts of the stories when he's like, don't tell anybody that this is me, it's not because he doesn't want people to know about him, it's because of everything that's happening in the history and how the Jewish people viewed a Messiah. So he had to be very careful and I love that there's a safety here for him to be able to really say gosh, that's cool. Yeah, that part of the story when I first originally studied it deeply instead of just the you know the story of she was bad.
Jamy:Jesus is good and forgives her. You kind of even you get deeper than that. You see a little seed of her faith and how Jesus just fans it when he, when he says it's me, and when we get deeper in the conversation, when she finally gets a little bit vulnerable and honest with Jesus. That's what she's asking for and that's and he meets her there with the full assurance of who he is, and I think I think there's a lot for us to learn from that. So that's still coming, yeah.
Amy:So we're going to look at three ways to describe the Samaritan woman. The first way is that she was isolated, and we find this in the first few verses of John 4, john 4, 1 through 7. So if you have your Bibles, you can kind of open to this and just have it there. It's a long story that we're going to do bits and pieces of scripture as we walk along that really use to prompt you to do your own study within God's word, within the scriptures. So she was isolated. Now, why was she isolated? Well, there's a couple of reasons why, and one of them was that she was a social outcast and there were a number of variables that caused her to be outcast socially from her community, and one was her race. She was a Samaritan and I had to I think we all, especially in Christian growing up circles we hear Samaritan, we hear the good Samaritan.
Amy:We hear Samaritan and how the. Jews did not like them, but why? And that's what I was wondering, and you can probably play into this also, but they were a mixed race. It was when the Syrians had released the Hebrews from captivity and they intermarried. Yes, and they were a mixed race. They weren't pure blood Hebrew and they just were really looked down upon. And there is a Jewish saying that says in history may I never set eyes on the Samaritan.
Jamy:Yeah, it was a deep, deep prejudice in this day for sure, it was a deep seat of prejudice and it went back had religious, ethnic, all the same things that prejudice is still based on today. But for him, for Jesus and his disciples, it would have been a very, very strange thing and look down on thing, for him to even give her the time of day.
Amy:Even to look at her. Yeah, because the second way that she was an outcast was her gender. I mean, she was a woman.
Jamy:Yeah, everything is yes. How many strikes you get they're against her?
Amy:I mean it's all piled up and we see this all in how it just describes her in the first few years. Is that for? For, contextually, many Jewish men started the day with a prayer to God expressing things that he was not a Gentile, a slave or a woman. And the Hebrew men did not even talk to a woman on the street, even his sister. If he passed her, his mother, his daughter or his wife, he would not even look at her. Okay, so she has a race that is prejudices, she has a gender that's prejudiced, and then y'all, she also has a lifestyle that was so looked down upon, as we see in scripture. Later on, in our conversation with Jesus, we're pulling it up to bring context to who she is. She had been married five times and she was living with a man.
Jamy:That is highly unusual in that day and age.
Amy:And I did a little bit of study on what could have happened to this man. Do you have any input on what happened?
Jamy:We hear that especially, I think, when you hear in the conversation, we assume that Jesus is saying it the way we would say it. So we have this judgy voice in our head about it and assume that something had happened. But she could have been widowed and another thing in this culture five times she could have been married and lost husbands. She also could have been married and divorced through no fault of her own. The way that we know for sure that she is living an immoral life is that who she's living with right now she's not married to. So I think we kind of we kind of go back and make assumptions about the other five, which is probably not too far of a jump, but if we really knew her story we don't know her name, we don't know her story um, on, what kind of heartbreak and loss could be represented in those loss of the five husbands? There could be all kinds of things in there that we don't fully understand. But she is living with someone she's not married to.
Amy:Okay, we know that, but I want to step into her shoes for a minute, because the love and the loss and the grief and the new and starting all these different relationships, I mean the heartbreak, whether it is divorce, the heartbreak whether it is divorce, the heartbreak whether it is the death of these husbands, every time she became smaller and and even the fact, the time of day that we know when she's there, that shows that she's not just alienated or isolated from men, she's also.
Jamy:She's not coming to the well when other women are there, and typically that's when she would have found comfort and camaraderie. So she truly, when we talk about her being isolated or outcast, it is not. We're not understanding that. I don't think we could say enough how alone she is.
Amy:Yeah, how alone she is, because we said that there are external ways in which are other people, ways in which she was isolated, but what Jamie just referred to is that she isolated herself as well. And then probably for protection right.
Amy:I think so I self protection because she had been so hurt so many times that I'm sure there's so many whispers within the community about who she was and who's her husband now, and I mean even now in our day and age, having five husbands is a lot. She did not go to the well to gather water like most women did in the time, the cooler part of the day, which was the morning and the evening, but she went at noon where no one was. And there have been times in my life where I have been in such a place where I was not wanting to be with people. Yeah, and you intentionally make sure, like, have you ever done the duck and cover in Target or in Walmart where you see somebody and you're like, oh, I don't. Or even at church, you're just like I just can't today, and so you kind of duck and cover and run, but I only imagine, uh, she was doing it to protect herself, but what it actually does is continue to make you feel worse.
Jamy:You don't have community it just makes you even more and more susceptible to the lies that you're already believing. I mean she would rather be physically miserable.
Amy:I mean he's going doing this physical task in the middle of the day and the heat was just awful I just want us to get a sense of her isolation, because I I believe that at some point in all of our lives we have isolated. Now there's another way that we can isolate ourself, not just with others who isolate us, not just physically us isolating ourselves from others, but our emotional isolation, in which we only go so far with people that's right and we keep our real self contained and only project who we want people to think we are.
Jamy:Yes, and she's like the queen of that when we see the conversation, when she actually has to talk to Jesus, she does what you just described perfectly, and I think more of us are probably guilty of that than anything, because I could switch that on anytime with my husband, with my girlfriends in ministry settings I can just isolate my real self and project really more of a perfection than there is
Amy:because of how I want others to see me and cover up the broken and cover up the hard, um, and so I think that there's such a huge part of relating to this woman in this point, because we all have isolated ourselves Absolutely. So the question that we pitched to you guys is how do you feel right now? That you are isolated or an outcast? Um, how have you isolated yourself from others? How have others isolated you?
Amy:And then how have you isolated your emotions, jamie? Maybe you have an example for this, but since I mean, I've had some time to think about it, there was one. One of my earliest memories in kindergarten was sitting around a circle around at my school and the teacher had asked us to share what our favorite food was and why and I mean, that's not a hard question, but my initial instinct was to not reveal my true self, but reveal something, someone that people would think was fun and funny and like me and laugh, get a reaction before I knew it, it my turn and before I knew it, out of my mouth came.
Amy:I love spinach because it makes me strong.
Jamy:I hated spinach you, popeye'd that question.
Amy:I did because it makes me strong and I remember holding my little girl arms up like, like I, like, you're flexing a muscle because it makes me strong.
Amy:I did get a laugh, yeah, I did feel good about myself, but I also knew that I was being deceptive. You knew that it wasn't true. I knew it wasn't true, and so there was an element of isolating my real self from others for fear that they would not like me. Yeah, and I think that we all can do that on some level in our day to day, and so we would just challenge all to be aware of that in your own life and see those spaces in which you're isolating yourself.
Jamy:Do you have any example? Well, what comes to mind for me is when I'm struggling and I either don't feel safe or just don't have the energy to to maybe have the actual conversation and just the scripts that we all have to be able to put people off when they might actually be caring and it might actually be good for us to have the courage to be a little more open.
Amy:Yeah, that's so true. That does happen often too. How are you doing, oh?
Jamy:I'm great I'm doing fine, or I'm okay.
Amy:Yeah, I would say it's usually in our language, oh, I'm great, I'm doing fine or I'm okay.
Jamy:I would say it's usually in our language, our body language and language I'm fine, don't go there.
Amy:Yeah, All right. So she was isolated and I my heart goes out to her for all these things, but she also engaged with Jesus.
Jamy:Yes, now this is super significant.
Amy:Yes, we find her conversation with Jesus Remember the longest one recorded in scripture with any other person in. Jesus in John 4, verses 9 through 26. So to have a Samaritan woman have a conversation with a Jewish man was so surprising and quite inappropriate. Yes, and Jesus instigated it. Yes, which we see, but she's still engaged. Yes and Jesus instigated it. Yes, which we see, um, but she's still engaged. Right, she was open and listened and asked and continued the conversation with him.
Jamy:Yeah, and I. I think there's plenty of places where she was trying to put him off, but she, she continued to allow, he definitely took the initiative and she continued to be drawn into it enough to even though she stayed on the outskirts till the very end, but to stay engaged. I think that's really important and I think it's okay for us to recognize, as she did, that sometimes, sometimes that's all we can do. You know, sometimes it's just like okay, god, I know you're here, I don't really know what to say, and this is how I feel, you know it's, I don't know.
Amy:And really just scratching the surface of religiosity. You don't have to have it all right.
Jamy:Yeah, or be coming to him with all of it, perfect Right, just hanging in there in a conversation. He can draw, he can do it. He draws a sneer, just like he did her.
Amy:And he's so patient and gentle with her he doesn't call her stupid woman and saying you know, just get to the point, woman.
Jamy:He is so kind and even when it says he had to go, I mean there's there's in the original language. There's compulsion there, cause remember he should at the very beginning in the narrative he shouldn't have actually very devout Not all of them did this, but very devout Jews would have taken a much longer route to get to where he needed to go. So a lot of them when it where he needed to go. So a lot of times when it says he had to go through Samaria, it just means that was the path and it was the most direct route. But also there's compulsion here. There was a this was a divine appointment, without question. He knew he had to be there. So I think there's an engagement, not just from her, but that there's an invitation from him that she is being somewhat receptive to. And I think it's hilarious when you go through their conversations, the way if he gets a little too close, she backs off with religion or something, but but she's, she's staying Cause, even the fact, and she says that the very first thing she's like.
Jamy:why are you talking to me?
Amy:Let's go through the. Let's go through the conversation. Jamie, for those of you to just read through the dialogue, I will start off. I'll be Jesus. If you'll be the Samaritan woman and we're just going to go through this, so we just wanted you to hear it the conversation that he had with Samaritan woman give me a drink.
Jamy:How is it that you, a Jew, asked for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?
Amy:if you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, give me a drink. You would ask him and he would give you living water.
Jamy:Sir, you don't even have a bucket and the well is deep, so where do you get this living water? You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.
Amy:Everyone who drinks from the water will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never thirst again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.
Jamy:Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty, and come here to draw water.
Amy:Well, go and call your husband and come back here.
Jamy:I don't have a husband.
Amy:You have answered correctly when you said I don't have a husband, for you have five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.
Jamy:Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you do say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.
Amy:Believe me, woman. An hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is not here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Yes, the father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Jamy:I know that the messiah is coming, who is called christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us I the one speaking to you, am he y'all?
Amy:that is the conversation that is a conversation. That's a conversation, the beauty of the words that Jesus delivers her.
Jamy:I can't imagine her intelligence and her courage even have any responses. We don't know really exactly if there was gaps in there or not, but just the way that and and that that came straight from the ESV. We're not kind of like adding our own spin to that. That's, that's the actual language from the scripture. But I wonder if there was some little pauses in there of her trying to kind of regroup herself, uh her, her thoughts. But I I am actually really impressed with her and how she maintains that conversation.
Amy:I know, and she really does levy some hefty, not theological but culturally.
Jamy:Yeah, it is, and I think that's an interesting point because we just kind of assume her she's like this bad lady, really simple lady, but she has all kinds of actual theology that she's talking about. She knows what her people believe and she's able to articulate it, which she's, which says a lot about her thoughtfulness, at least in in what she has thought about and knows about life. It's, it's there.
Amy:Well, I just love that Jesus was so patient and kind to really slow, give her only what she could handle for that exchange and then move her into the next.
Jamy:Yeah, and you see, her and I think we really do this a lot as far as talking about the engagement point, Jesus is always trying to go relationally a little deeper and she pushes them off with religion, and I think we need to be very aware of that because, man, we are good at that.
Jamy:Someone asked us a question that maybe feels a little too too vulnerable, a little too close to home, and we'll come back with some kind of something that we know might start a fight. I mean, she does it over and over again. She is basically lobbying to him the baseballs that he could just knock out of the park as far as judging her, rejecting her, getting rid of her. She does it over and over again and he he never takes the bait, and I think there's a part of her that is like I don't know why this guy's talking to me, I don't really know what's going on here, so that felt a little weird. So instead I'm going to say this about religion, because no Jewish man is going to let me get away with saying this and instead he just takes it to a more personal level of okay, well, this is who God really is and this is, this is how we are to worship him Golly.
Amy:That is that hits me to my core, because how easy it is to fall in this religious, this religion, and think that we are engaging with Jesus. But Jesus is always wanting our hearts, he's wanting our relationship, and I think he brings her to the point when he exposes her most shameful, broken part with living with a man in which she is vulnerable enough to fully hear what he has, what he wants to say to her.
Jamy:She, she doesn't. He doesn't reject her, but she definitely backs off to it. Okay, sir, yeah, she, she comes back with that language. Sir, I perceive you're a prophet. She's again trying to get a little bit of distance and he keeps. But had he done and said what most Jewish men would have said to her about her lifestyle, it wouldn't have continued to be a conversation, and I think we can see a lot. There's so much. I always think when I read how Jesus handled this, how he managed the conversation. We can learn so much about how we talk to people who have differing views because he he takes.
Jamy:He's always. He's kind of gauging where she is through the questions, but he's also kind of funneling and tunneling the conversation toward more important things. He's not going to get sidetracked with her lifestyle. He's not going to get sidetracked with these alternate views that she keeps giving him. That are would be very disagreeable, and I think there's a lot we can learn.
Jamy:Sometimes, I think, in spiritual conversations or evangelistic conversations, we think we have to like defend all the right things about scripture and and Jesus to people. And that's not really what he did. He kept the conversation going. There's no big shock as she's saying things that are wrong. He just keeps talking and keeps telling her the truth, and that's what I love. I love that about him. When he says you've, you've told me the truth, I think there's a little bit of appreciation. When she says I don't have a husband, he's saying that's true, you have told me the truth, but obviously she has not told him the whole truth and I think there's a, there's something there that I think we can really learn from how we how we talk to him, but also how we talk to other people.
Amy:Because he was so sweet to pitch her the question first or give her the opportunity first to admit that place. Cause he says go and bring your husband. And that's when she said I don't have a husband. And then he he. So that was truth and that could have been like the trap, yeah. And then he went even deeper and said you're right, yeah you've had five I mean you're living with, isn't your husband?
Amy:yes, yeah so he then goes and it's so important sometimes in my engagement with Jesus I only give him a little bit and he is bidding us and inviting us to give it all the depths of our brokenness and our hurt and our shame.
Jamy:I just can't imagine that amount of shame that she would have felt with the way her life has turned out and there has to be something about the way he interacts with her that doesn't make her feel more shame because she continues to keep talking to him. So there's something, and even you know we're fast forwarding. But at the end, when she goes to tell everybody, she says come see this man who told me everything I've ever done. I know there's. So there's something. He didn't condemn, condemn me for everything I've done, but he told me he knew it. So there's there's kind of this undercurrent of he knew what I'd done but he didn't reject me.
Amy:There's a little bit of that in there.
Jamy:The text doesn't state that, but that's kind of the under, I think the under underneath part.
Amy:I agree, because who would ever want to be in a conversation with someone who tells whatever I've done?
Amy:And for it to be a liberating point and one in which she shares Jesus with others by saying she was freed?
Amy:And I think that's another massive point that the Lord wants us to know through this story is, until you bring your shame and your brokenness and your deepest sin to the light and admit and confess it and be aware of it, you won't be free, only want to manage the symptoms, when the deeper problem probably happened in our childhood or in growing up and and we've got to go there in order to be free. And it's not easy and it is hard and typically requires the help of a Christian counselor to walk alongside of you and ask those questions. But y'all, if you feel like you're stuck and just can't get beyond a certain level of engagement with Jesus, we would just encourage you to ask him is there something that I haven't reached yet? And and maybe make an appointment with a counselor and see if there's something that you may not be aware of, but then also that you just have not had a chance to bring to the light so you can be free of it.
Amy:Yeah, he's cause he. He's safe for that he is safe for that, and that's what?
Jamy:that's one of our biggest lessons from her for sure.
Jamy:You know, I had one one time.
Jamy:I was on a mission trip with um, with some friends, and I was asking the missionary how he figured out what like how do you decide when you're going out and how do you decide who to talk to, who to share with, because some people are dangerous, could get them in trouble. There's all kinds of cultural things, just like in here. And he said I always ask the Lord before I go, when I pray, I always ask the Lord to show me who's listening. And I think there's an aspect of that.
Jamy:When we're talking to people, when we're, um, when we're having these kinds of spiritual conversations, there's an aspect of okay, god, who's listening? Who's? Who is it that is seeking you today? And I can just show up and just be there with questions and with compassion and with acceptance and with just whatever they come at me is fine, and just being there ready, because the ones that are listening to what God has to say, to what Jesus has to say, they're going to hear it, they're going to be able to hear it, and so I think there's that lesson too for us.
Amy:I think in all of this, yeah, and it's not listening to get the answers right.
Jamy:Yes, or listening to be able to attack. Exactly.
Amy:It's listening to engage. And she had no idea that going to the well that day would lead her to such a significant life change because she met Jesus. But there's nothing she could have done to prepare for it. But there's nothing she could have done to prepare for it, that I believe there was something that was within her spirit that made her open, definitely To keep the conversation going.
Jamy:Definitely, and God already knew it, god already knew it the timing of it all. And can you imagine when she walked up that day and saw this Jewish man standing next to the well About to duck and run oh, my goodness, you know I, finally, I really need to get this water.
Jamy:It's already hot. I'm already yeah to see. No, I'm going to have to. And even the courage to keep, to not just turn around and go back. That's so true. And then to get there and have him say will you give me a drink? She's like what is happening? What is happening? Why are you talking to me?
Amy:You don't even make sense to her. So that that, I think, is so key for you to engage with Jesus and allow him to go to the places that you're most ashamed of, because that's that's when you'll truly be free, absolutely.
Amy:So the first one was that she was isolated. The second point was that she was engaged with Jesus, and the third one was that she was no longer thirsty. Oh, I love that, and I think it's so interesting to use the word picture that Jesus did here with water and thirst, and for us to talk about it, because in her soul, after she realized that he was the Messiah, that her heart, her soul, was satisfied with what it had been longing for Identity, a new identity when his identity was made known. The word for thirst here in the Greek means those who thirst, are painfully aware and feel their wanting of more and the things that they don't have. Oh, that's good, isn't that cool? Yeah, and so she had this thirst inside of her that was aware of what they don't have. Oh, that's good, isn't that cool? Yeah, and so she had this thirst inside of her that was aware of what she didn't have. And, um, you then are refreshed, supported and strengthened in the soul.
Jamy:That's so good and we see her just a little bit of eagerness there. She's like tell me about this, yeah, and I think then it's still physical to her. But how interesting that he really quickly gets her to a place of being able to say what you just said Acknowledge, acknowledge her, her soul, thirst, and then be able to to trust him with it a little bit.
Amy:Yeah, sometimes I pray Lord satisfy my thirsty heart, or whether I'm at an event speaking asking the Lord to satisfy the thirsty parts of the hearts of those who are there because those are those dry places that are malnourished, that are shriveling up, that that need some refreshment.
Amy:And and if you could deep dive into your own soul and just see those categories or those places in which you are thirsty? Those are the very parts in which Jesus wants to refresh with who he is. So I'm so interested in what you would think about this, because we see him say I, am he the Messiah? And then she drops her jar and goes into town and tells everybody come see the man who's told me everything I've done. Yeah, what made her at that point get it?
Jamy:I think her the first real vulnerability. If you go back in the conversation right before that, he has said I know these things about your life. And she backs up a little bit and says, okay, you gotta be a prophet. I see that you're a prophet. But then she goes on to say like a religious thing that he might fight with. But instead of fighting, he clarifies that there's coming a day when things are going to be different.
Jamy:And her response after that I think this is you know, when he says worshipers, it's going to be in spirit and in truth. And I think it was such a strange reaction to her in in her mind because when, as soon as her personal life came out and then she gives the whole uh, you're probably doing it wrong and we're doing it right, and he doesn't just just take her out with his arguments that I think after that her response is she says I know the Messiah is coming. And I think there's this little kernel of faith right there, Because I wonder what conviction she said it with. I would just love to have actually heard her say, when Jesus says all of this about what life with God is going to be like and how worshipers are going to be and she says I know he's coming and when he comes he will fix all of this, he will tell us, he'll explain it all. I think there's the hope is irresistible to him because she says I know he's coming and that's where my hope lies. I can't come here safely with all these other people and I can't even trust that you're going to be kind to me Although this is a really weird conversation, I can't really trust anything that, um, I've lost these men. I'm living right now in a way that I know I shouldn't.
Jamy:All of this is just implied in my own wondering about her. But when she says I know he's coming, the faith that she has that there is a Messiah and that he's going to come and he's going to explain it all, I think as soon as that little bit of faith, that's when she's finally vulnerable. And Jesus I mean. I know he wasn't touching her, but I just wonder if he just wanted to just put his hands on her shoulder, take her face in his hands and say it's me, here, I am. Everything you've hoped for is right here. I'm right here and it is no accident.
Jamy:I kind of hate that the disciples come and interrupt this moment because I really want to hear her reaction, but we know from her response we don't have her words, but we have her response that she gets it. As soon as he says it's me. I know he's coming and he's going to explain this and he says it's me, she's just like yes, it is. I offered this chance that maybe, maybe, this belief could be received by this really smart, obviously prophet, this, this man and it's not just a man who might accept my hope for the Messiah, it's actually the Messiah, it's miraculous and it's beautiful and the acceptance in that I think it. I think, finally, everything that she had been working up and maybe even struggling with her own calling out to God, that has brought God right there to her. She sees it and she recognizes it and she is immediately changed. It's amazing. It is amazing that part of I am he every time.
Amy:I know.
Jamy:And I don't want us to miss it. I know.
Amy:Because it is when Jesus intercepts us in our daily. I mean, she was going about her daily mundane every day.
Amy:Let's avoid people and go to the well at noon when she was in the daily work of her life, yep, and Jesus meets her there. Yeah, I mean, it changes everything, mm-hmm. And if we don't have the little bit of hope and the faith, yes, that he changes everything, yes, we will miss him. Yes, when he meets us in places, and you don't have to have a big old amount of faith, it's just a little bit.
Jamy:I know, I know he's coming. I know he's coming. I don't know how, I don't know what it's going to look like. I don't know how he's going to fix this mess of my life. I know he's coming and when he gets here we'll be okay. That's kind of a part of that, yeah.
Amy:And he can't's me. I just it, just this story just gets me so much because he really does take her to her most vulnerable place. When she came at him, so self-protected, but, like you said, he was a safe place and she could sense that as he responded to her, and then it allowed her to have that glimmer of hope be received by him and then just blown apart, with him making the admission that he is the Messiah.
Jamy:How long do you think it had been since she voiced any measure of hope like that?
Amy:I wonder, I wonder if she had. You know anybody?
Jamy:Yeah, there's something in her story where she knew these things. So someone had taught her or she'd listened in some way to know enough about God to have hope for the Messiah. But I just I don't know, I don't know how. I wish I knew more of her story and where that was. But that's all it took was just to stay engaged in the conversation to offer that little bit of tiny little bit of faith she had, and he met her with just an overflow of joy and acceptance and forgiveness.
Amy:It's all right, there Changed her life, yes, and all those places in which she was shame filled and thirsty because of Jesus. She had a new identity. And for those of you who are listening, who have a little bit of faith, I mean this is how it plays out in me and my girlfriend's life. We know who Jesus is, we believe him to be the savior of the world and who died for our sins. But when we walk through our daily life and the daily struggles, his invasion into those places is not as magnanimous as his person is. Yes, I do have a little hope that he is overall and will strengthen me and all that, and sometimes I chide myself for not feeling strengthened. Only on that knowledge, yes, only on that knowledge. But but the power comes, the strength comes when I confess my own efforts and my own not enoughness to figure it out.
Amy:It's like Lord, I mean, with the whole moving thing, for any of y'all who's moving, it's just. It's just a lot of packing up your life and lots to do, lots of unsettledness, lots of transition, lots of unknowns, and it just kind of gets you a little. It's gotten me a little rattled, yes, and I know the things of the Lord. Yes, he has come and met me in places that have been so sweet and healing. But so much of this I want to I can just do on my own, and it feels good to do on my own, but that never leads me to a place of refreshment.
Amy:And so, for me and for those of us who find ourselves in similar situations, if, if, throughout the day, I will say, lord, I can't do this, I'm trying and it's not working, and I don't want to do this on my own, I invite you in, please come in and show me who you are in this place, and then he also. Then this is what else is having me y'all? He then reveals to me and shows me those places, like he did the woman that I'm doing it on my own, yes in which I like, for example, amy, you're doing this because you want control of the issue, to help you in those areas that you don't feel like you're in control. So you want control of the issue to help you in those areas that you don't feel like you're in control. So you're trying to gain control. You'll never have control. I am in control and trust me so in this diet. And that's not fun, and that's sometimes why I avoid talking with him in the first place because, then he'll reveal all the areas that are hurt.
Amy:Reveal all the areas that are hurt, that hurt and that I don't want to do, but it's. It's such a false hood to think that we can do it as good or better than God can, and it's okay to realize our limits, um, those places in which we fall short. We don't need to prove anything to him, that's right. We need to just embrace him as the one who can help us in and respond yes to his presence.
Jamy:Yep, because refreshment comes from the living water, which is him, not from all the things we're able to get done or be, or appear to be, or any of that. All of that drains, but only he really fills, and that's. All of that drains, but only he really fills, and all of that's relational.
Amy:It is with him and spending time with him in the mornings, and I'm doing a new thing in my Bible study in which I'm able to list out my prayers. But then three things that I give to God today, and then what I'm grateful for. And it's really been interesting.
Amy:There's a lot of reoccurrings on the three things I give to the Lord the move, the details, friends to be established once we get there quickly, all those things and I'm just like you know I do need to give these to him beyond just writing it on the page. But whenever I get my cute label and write down what's in the bin and stick it on the thing and feel very satisfied and in control, yes, that's great. But if I'm using it to make me feel settled or better, I am falling for a counterfeit of true living water. That's right. I'm satisfying my thirst with something that doesn't satisfy it. I'll have to keep coming back to my control.
Amy:It doesn't work it absolutely doesn't work, and so I don't know how that lands on you or resonates with you. Who are listening, um, but we just pray that that at this moment that you are listening to this podcast, as as we have talked about it in our car, that the Lord has really revealed some things to you and met you where you are, wherever you are, and is inviting you to go get closer and to go deeper with him. Yep, and so what will that take for you, is the question, and what are you thirsting for? Yes, jamie, do you have anything else?
Jamy:that well, I just before we leave her. You know she runs, she leaves her picture. The guys come, the disciples come and they're totally confused about like did someone?
Amy:bring him food.
Jamy:that's a side note. She runs the town, she tells everyone and I don't I think it's really important to to see that what she's been trying so hard to do and avoiding all the people, now she's just welcoming, yeah, just running back into town and telling people you got to come see this, you got to come, you got to come hear him. And then I think it says that many believed because of her testimony and I like that part of her testimony. And then down a little bit later it says well, first we believed, I think, basically because you said and he said you came in back and you said this guy told you everything you'd ever done and we kind of know some of what you've done, and so we had to see that. So it's kind of like that was the beginning. But they said but that's not why we stayed Once we heard from him, that's why we believed. And there's so much good in that. I just think, when we can come to him and hear him and receive what he gives us and let go of the shame because that is to me that's the biggest difference in how she came to the well and how she left the well is the absence of that weight of shame. She goes and says I mean, what she's been trying to hide is all these things that she's ever done. And now she's saying this guy just said everything that I've ever done. You know her story told from that perspective, in this new, within this new experience she had.
Jamy:That's the testament. That's all we have to do. That's all we have to do is just show up telling the story that he has given us. It doesn't have to. Who cares if they believe it? Who cares if they like it? Who cares any of that? Just to be able to honestly show up telling our story with compassion, without shame, in community. That's that opens the door for God to do what he's going to do, and we don't have to do it. You know if, if you have an opportunity to share with someone and they don't like it, that's okay. It's not our, that's not our job. And I think the way that she runs back in there, I think a whole community is changed. And I know later, when I was studying into Acts, we can see places where they go back to share the gospel in the same area and I can't help but think huh.
Amy:I wonder if she's like yes, I met that guy, I know this story.
Jamy:In fact, my whole town knows this story because he was here and we listened to him and he spent a couple of days with us. We know this. I just, oh, it's just so sweet to to see that her, her willingness to talk with him, to be honest with him, to receive love, the living water, acceptance, forgiveness from him, with him to receive love, the living water, acceptance, forgiveness from him, and then to share with the people around her that she'd been afraid of before, that that was where the real life change happened. And we can just we can kind of make that a simpler formula or a simpler learning lesson for us. But all of us can do that. We walk with jesus and then we live that testimony, we share that testimony without shame and there's no telling what will happen.
Jamy:I know, and you know, a lot of times I think when, when I think about walking with the Lord and what so many different women, myself included, go through different times, and the shameful parts of our story that we try to really hide. And we we want to serve the Lord and share with people about the Lord and all the things we're learning, but we don't want it to be from this place of shame. We want it to be a different story, but I really feel like the very best things, the best fruit grows when we open up those spots instead and we have to do that carefully, like you've already described so beautifully how we should be doing that and diving into healing in those areas. But I really think the best fruit grows from those spots and so if we can trust him and each other, we can really find just such beautiful healing and such a beautiful place for Jesus to just help us flourish.
Amy:Yeah, we all can relate to the brokenness, because we are all broken and it is inspiring and encouraging when you hear someone else speak from that place, yes, when you hear someone else speak from that place and then point you to Jesus. So we pray that for you all, we pray this conversation has been encouraging to you.
Amy:It's been to us and we just are so grateful that you've joined us here. The Samaritan woman, or the woman at the well. Who was she? She was isolated, engaged with Jesus and was no longer thirsty. And who was God to her? He was her living water, her Messiah.
Jamy:Would you have anything else to add to that?
Amy:Her freedom from shame, and she is one of us who God is to her, he is to you and me. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time on Car Chat Podcast.
