John 4:39

As a result of the encounter Jesus has with the woman at the well, many of the Samaritans in town put their trust in Him solely on the basis of the woman’s simple testimony, “The Man told me everything about myself!” John 4:39 EFP

Talk about a harvest!  The clueless disciples are undoubtedly amazed as the reality of the events of the day become apparent.  All they saw earlier that day was an unsavory woman talking with Jesus who upon their righteous and pompous arrival run off as if on a mission.  She even forgot her water jar in her rush to escape from their threatening presence.

Now they see an avalanche of people, young and old, come out to meet the Man who “told [the woman] everything about her” without ever having met her before.  They come out in droves; it seems that way considering Sychar is just a little town!  This is the harvest Jesus has been talking about.  I don’t know what they are thinking, but it must have been a combination of elation and joy and amazement and awe.  They get a taste for what it means to sow souls for life.  They get a front row seat as the power of the Gospel makes an appearance.  It must have been a festive moment—a veritable party in Sychar.  The kingdom of God announced by John the Baptist has now arrived in the hamlet where Jacob had once dug a well, not knowing that one day springs of living water would gush from that very spot and flood the entire city.

There is something special about hearing words of love, compassion, and hope from someone who knows everything about you.  God, whom Jesus came to reveal, knows everything about me.  He has seen me at my worst.  He has heard the unspoken words that inhabit my mind and often escape into my conscious thoughts.  He knows my checkered past.  He knows my tortured journey.  He sees beyond the veneer of my soul.  But he also sees me through His divine eyes of love.  I am that soul baked underneath the sun of censure and failure.  I also bear that solitary semblance of shame.  I come to the well of promise but it does not deliver.  I keep coming back, but it only serves to remind me that I will have to come again—my parched soul demands it.  But I, as the woman at the well, am rescued from the coals of condemnation and given a taste of everlasting water.  I will come back for more, and bring others with me, not because I have to, but because I want to have and share more and more and more.  I pray my witness and testimony will also cause others to place their trust in Jesus—my Savior, and my Lord.