I am running, relentlessly. I’m in a giant wheel that keeps turning. I am running and getting tired but I’m not getting anywhere. I feel like a rat in a rat race. My energy is spent. My legs can’t keep running but the wheel keeps turning. I need to get out. I try my escape. I hop off the wheel.
I find myself in a maze, a labyrinth of some sort. I need to run again. The path isn’t straight. It winds and turns and twists. The corridors are narrow. I can barely see ahead of me. I hear water. Somewhere… I don’t know where. I realize I am thirsty.
I am lost in the maze. I can’t find my way back. There are two pathways ahead. One says “Money.” The other says “I AM.” What is “I AM”? I take the path to Money. Money is what I need. Money will quench my thirst.
Again I run. I hear footsteps behind me, running. Is someone after the money, too? I run faster. The footsteps behind me begin to run faster, too. I stop and try to listen. The footsteps get nearer and nearer. Maybe that someone isn’t after the money. Maybe he’s after me.
I speed up. I hit a dead-end. The path to money didn’t get me anywhere. I am thirstier than before. I still hear the water from far off. There must be a fountain here somewhere. Help! If I don’t drink, I’ll die.
I turn and see more pathways! Career. Relationships. Religion. Alcohol. Drugs. And curiously, the pathway marked the “I AM” is still here. That someone is still chasing me, in relentless pursuit. I need to make a decision, and fast.
I try the path marked “Relationships.” On the walls is etched a story told in pictures. It’s about a woman who has been here before. She was a Samaritan, one of the filthy half-breeds. She’s been here in this very pathway, searching for relationships to quench her thirst. She has taken this path five times over. Then she meets a Man at a well. He was Jewish, from the Chosen Race. But He’s unlike any other man she’s met before. He speaks to her and is kind to her.
“Please give me a drink,” He says.
"You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman,” she replies, startled upon the intrusion. “Why are you asking me for a drink?"
"If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water," He offers. “Those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life."
They talk some more, about her dark past, her secrets. She talks about worship. Of this He says, “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for God is Spirit.”
“I know the Messiah is coming,” she says. “When He does, He will explain everything to us.”
“I AM the Messiah,” says the Man. And the woman was never thirsty ever again.
I want to meet that Man. I want to hear His words. I want to drink from His living water. “I AM Jesus,” says Someone behind me.
I turn, and there He was. “I have been relentlessly pursuing you.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I love you.” He reached out to me. In His hand is a hole the size of a giant nail.
No comments:
Post a Comment