Our Soulmate
My relationship with Jesus began when I was a young girl. Since that time, I have always wanted him in my life and maintained a relationship with him. However, I didn't realize the importance of his position in my heart. It was when I divorced after sixteen years of marriage that I realized how much my trust in the Lord mattered for the condition of my soul.
During the marriage, my trust was in my ex. Jesus was always with me, but he was the best friend I confided in. Jesus and I were close, and trusted him with my hurt and secrets; however, there is a difference between trusting someone and putting your trust in someone.
Trusting someone means believing they are good enough to rely on and be vulnerable. Putting trust in someone is when you have faith in the person to be a source of security and safety for your soul. This trust is only fit to be placed in Jesus because he is love, and the soul is only safe and secure in pure, righteous, holy love.
When going through the divorce, feelings of being abandoned and unloved resurfaced. I had felt them as a child, a teen, and then as a married young woman; these feelings had been with me my entire life. These feelings led me to find a false sense of safety and security in marriage. When the marriage failed and the man I trusted with my heart left, I was left with those feelings. However, my best friend remained with me. Jesus was still there when the marriage ended, and I had my Samaritan woman encounter with him at that moment.
Let's read John 4:4-7:
"So he left Judea and returned to Galilee. He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually, he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Please give me a drink." He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food."
The woman Jesus had to go through Samaria to see was a woman who understood the feelings of abandonment and the lack of love well. At the time of her meeting with Jesus, she had been divorced five times and currently living with a man she had not married. The beauty of Jesus is seen in this encounter because when our hearts break and we feel unloved, Jesus has a sense of urgency to come to us and attend to our pain. He will also come to us alone. He heals our hearts with genuine TLC (tender loving care) intimately and privately. David says in Psalm 34:18, "The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit."
The Samaritan woman placed her trust in men, hoping they would be the safety and security that her soul needed, and Jesus knowing what she truly needed, went to the well and waited for her to show up. In my circumstance, Jesus waited patiently during my marriage for me to take him out of the friend zone and to start seeing him as the lover of my soul. He approached me with gentleness when I was hurting the most, and just as he did for the Samaritan woman, he showed me how I had been trusting in man to love me rather than in his love for me.
How often do we do this and put our trust in relationships, careers, opportunities, and material things to satisfy the love our soul desperately needs? With every failed attempt to satisfy our souls, we, like the Samaritan woman, move on to the next. The next relationship, the next spouse, the next job, the next car, the following luxury trip, and the list goes on. Meanwhile, Jesus is waiting for his turn to be next.
Let's continue reading John 4:11-14 and see what happens when we give Jesus his chance to satisfy our souls:
"But sir, you don't have a rope or a bucket," she said, "and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think you're greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?" Jesus replied, "Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life."
Jesus uses thirst and a person's need for water to reveal to her that he knows the condition of her soul. In Psalm 42:1-2, the psalmist says: "As the deer pants (longs for) for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."
In Psalm 63:1, David writes: "My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You, in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water."
The soul longing for God is similar to a deer panting for water and one being thirsty because it signifies exertion. When we jump from relationship to relationship, from promotion to promotion, or from one material purchase to another, attempting to satisfy our need for safety, security, and love, we over-exert ourselves. Similar to a deer panting after swiftly running. Deer pant to release heat, and humans sweat to release heat; both results in thirst. Our breath becomes quick and short, and we need something to cool us off. We need something to satisfy our thirst.
Jesus is living water for the thirsty soul, and when he quenches our thirst, we never thirst again. We will never look to a relationship, career opportunity, or material purchase for love. Instead of those things being the source of safety and security, they will take their proper place as blessings in our lives, as an overflow of God's love for us. We are spiritual people, and our inner longing for love can only be satisfied through the Spirit - the Spirit of love, and that is God.
As we continue reading, the woman asks Jesus for the living water he speaks of, and in response, Jesus asks her to get her husband. He does this to make it clear that he was not referring to water for drinking but living water for the soul. Jesus reveals to the woman that he knows of her past marriages and current relationship situation, and as a result, the woman concludes that Jesus is a prophet. She then changes the conversation to discuss worship, and after Jesus explains what true worship is, the woman says:
"I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things."
What Jesus says in response is the key to receiving the living water he is referring to:
"Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."
After Jesus revealed to her that he was the Christ, everything changed. The woman could now see him for who he was, and her desire for love, safety, and security was satisfied immediately. How her transformation happened is interesting because Jesus did not tell her of his love, baptize her, or tell her she must be born again. Instead, it was the revelation of him as Christ that changed her because she had been waiting for Christ to come - the gift of God that would satisfy her need for love.
The way we view Jesus affects how we trust and receive from him. Jesus is everything to us. He and he alone can wholly satisfy the human soul. Our alone time with Jesus is a time to see him as he is to us, individually and specifically. When we have this personal revelation of the love of Jesus and his life and words in us, we will be made whole in our souls. Complete and ready to receive love and love others from the overflow.
John 4:28-29 and verse 39 say this about the Samaritan woman after her encounter with Jesus:
"The woman then left her waterpot, 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?"
"And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did."
When Jesus becomes more than a friend or more than a prophet or more than whatever title we've given him, based on our current revelation of him, and we enter into love with him, our relationship with love and need for love changes. When we put our trust in Jesus, we put our trust in Love; therefore, instead of longing to be loved, we become satisfied with Love, and in turn, we desire to give love from his abundance within us. I encourage you to let Jesus be next. He's waiting for you at the well of your disappear longing to reveal himself as your soul's One and only lover - your true soulmate.