Time with God

Now Jesus had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
-John 4:4-10

This weekend many of our women are taking time away from our regular routines to sit a while with Jesus.  Our Annual Women’s Retreat is April 24-26 at Ross Point, Idaho.  At the church, we are hosting a Kairos weekend for women who have been affected by incarceration.  This is similar to a Walk With Christ weekend.  Sometimes Kairos weekends happen inside a prison facility, this one is called Kairos “Outside”.  The word “kairos” is Greek for “time”.  Merriam-Webster dictionary definition: “The meaning of KAIROS is a time when conditions are right for the accomplishment of a crucial action: the opportune and decisive moment.”

In our use of the word, we see “kairos” as God’s timing.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  God’s perfect timing may not fit into our schedule the way we planned.  But when we trust him to provide, God is faithful.

The Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well was seeking water for her day and her household.  What she received through spending time with Jesus was the living water she desperately needed for her soul. Spending time with Jesus transformed her from a shameful woman into an evangelist sharing with her whole community the good news of the Messiah.  How will God transform your life when you spend some time with Jesus?

PRAYER
You are the Source of all Life, O God, offering yourself to us beyond our imagination.
Yet so often what comes streaming out of our own hearts is not grace, but gossip; not compassion, but comparison; not peace, but passive-aggression; not hope, but hurt.
You are the Source of all Life, O God.
Forgive us for turning to other sources, gorging ourselves with that which does not satisfy. Fill us once again with faith, hope, and love, and connect us to you so that we may be springs of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, generosity, and self-control. We ask in the name of Jesus the Christ, who quenches thirst with living water. Amen.