Missions

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March 02, 2002


The place to meet God is in the routine of life


John 4:28-30 The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, come, see a man who told me all things that I ever did, could this be the Christ?


God has a habit of disrupting our routine existence. He comes to us and speaks without notice. Sometimes it might be in response to a prayer or maybe He just wants to speak into our life. We can’t predict when He will come, because the Spirit is like the wind, it blows where it wishes. And likewise we don’t know what he is going to say. Although we do know that whatever He says, it’s going to be for our benefit.
For He comes to us with a heart of a Shepard. We know that a Shepard has nothing but the safety of the flock in mind. If the Shepard sees a sheep wandering, he will leave and fetch it. Sometimes He’s very stern with us, because He knows how easy it is for us to wander. In fact we don’t even think about it, we just wander. Seeing that we don’t know when He’s coming, it would be pointless to set aside a certain time for His arrival. If we knew when He was coming we would have ample time to clean up. You know, get rid of some things that we don’t want Him to see. We should know by now that a surprise showing is His trademark.
Some of us consider our prayer time to be the time when we meet with God. And it is. But usually during these times we do all the talking and a nice way we present our agenda. However, we are cleaver, we put just enough twist on the lingual to make it sound like it’s His idea.
But when He comes to us He brings His agenda, and we need to hear what that agenda is. Our prayer life should be consumed with what He tells us. We need to stop praying silly prayers that don’t mean anything. Prayers like Lord, if it is your will I will do this or that. We say these types of prayers because we don’t listen to what He say when he comes. If we would only listen then we would know what His will is. Ephesians 5:15-17. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
There is one thing; when He comes He and speaks, He will require us to change. And change is one word that we do not like to hear. We like the life that we have carved out for ourselves. Besides why do I have to change? I’m ok. Isn’t that what the world tells us? They say,” you believe what you want and we will believe what we want”. No need to change here.
On a certain day, Jesus decided to visit a certain woman that was busy doing her daily routine chores. This particular woman was not anyone of importance, at least not in the eyes of the community. She wasn’t even allowed to carry water with the rest of the women.
She had come to accept her place in society. Her deepest desires were kept a secret, deep inside of her, never to be realized. At times she must have wondered what she could have done differently, that would have allowed her to be accepted.
When Jesus looked at her, He could see those desires and saw that they were good. On the outward He saw the woman that everyone else saw. But when He looked into her heart, He noticed a woman that wanted to worship God. Just think, of all the things that she have talked about, it was worship. She wanted to be in the presence of God. In fact the desire to worship was so strong, she asked Jesus where the proper place was. Now some of us would have said, forget it lady, we know all the things you have done. You will never be worthy to worship. Just give me a drink and I will be on my way. But Jesus said that the place didn’t matter. He said, ”The true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth”. Jesus interrupted her routine and offered her eternal life. He gave her access to the Father. The only thing that she got from the people that knew her was a constant reminder of what she was.
Jesus said, “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” But we don’t want to make disciples, we want to make clones. We want people to be just like us. In fact, we won’t even talk to people unless they are one of us. We have to change the way we think. What if Jesus thought the same way we do? Who would have set that woman free?
It’s ok to live a routine life. Most of us do, we have a pattern that we follow everyday, and that’s ok. But when God decides to break into our routine and speak, we need to be ready and change what we are doing.
Jesus’ plan on this day was not to point out the woman’s sin, but rather, to set her free to worship.
Could it be that the reason that she fell into sin was because she thought that she would never be worthy to worship? We look at someone like her and say, she’s enjoying the way she is living, but Jesus looked at her and seen a person in misery.
We walk into the harvest field everyday. How do we see people? Do we see their desire to worship God or do we focus on the obvious ugly surface stuff? That would be the easy way, just plug along til Jesus comes. Or we can take a chance and look into the heart of someone and by the help of the Spirit, we might see a person trapped, but desperately trying to make a connection with their creator. We could be the only link they will ever have to reaching God.
The next time we see someone who looks okay, but God says that they aren’t and that they are thirsty, lets offer some of that precious eternal water that He has given us. Who knows what will happen. They might drop what they are doing and go tell everyone that Jesus has disrupted their life and now they can worship God

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