If You Knew The Gift of God

She slipped quietly out the door and  and moved quickly towards the well. The mid-day heat was brutal and the dust swirled around her as she made her way to the water source. She kept her head down low and avoided eye contact with anyone along the way. Life had not gone as she expected. There were things from her past that she hadn't really dealt with and so the shame, the guilt, the anger, the bitterness- it all still reared up inside her.

There were things in her present that kept her from the abundant life too. Circumstances that stole her joy, that imprisoned her heart, that weighed her down.

As a little girl she had dreams and desires. She had expectations and hopes. She had felt a happiness that now eluded her and seemed so far in the distant she barely remembered them.

She was a Samaritan woman in in a culture and environment that had little appreciation or respect for either.

Five failed marriages. A current relationship that was headed nowhere.

She felt trapped, isolated, and all alone. Hopeless. Desperate. Tired.

Just tired. Always tired.

As she approached the well, she was startled to find a stranger sitting there. And even more stunned when he looked right at her and struck up a conversation.

They talked for a while. There was something about the man that was captivating. He seemed to be able to see right through her and knew everything that was in her heart.

"He told me all that I ever did," she exclaimed to her friends.

But there was one thing Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well that changed her life. He had looked right into her eyes and said, "if you knew the gift of God..." (John 4:10)

If you knew the gift of God.

That's really the question for all of us you know.

If we knew the gift of God we could be set free from guilt and shame. If we knew the gift of God we could be liberated form bitterness, anger and frustration. If we knew the gift of God we would find freedom from anger, envy, disappointment and despair.

If we knew the gift of God, life would never ever be the same. If we knew the gift of God it would truly set us free.

Take a moment and remind yourself of the  gift of God. And then let go of what you're holding that keeps weighing you down.