Daddy, Are You Embarrassed?

“Daddy, are you embarrassed that you don’t have a job?” asked my daughter.  Wow!   How do I respond to such an insightful question?  Of course, I do have a job, I counsel, but right now it is part time.  Also, she knows that I want a senior pastoral position.

So am I embarrassed?  I’m not so embarrassed as humbled and disappointed.  I’m 48 years old and believe that I should be at the peak of my career by fulfilling my dreams of leading a gospel centered and multi-ethnic church.  But that dream is not being fulfilled!  To be honest, I experience anger with God.  I wrestle with doubts and what it really means to trust the sovereignty of God.  I’m at a crazy place where I counsel people on finding hope in the gospel and yet I at times feel very hopeless as it relates to my future.

What keeps me grounded?  What keeps me sane?  What keeps me going?  It is Jesus and what He did for me (and you) in his life and on the cross!  I’m reminded of John 4.  Here, Jesus initiates a life-changing conversation with a Samaritan woman.  That’s crazy in itself during that time—a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman.  She was from the inferior sex, the inferior race and an inferior religion, according to the ancient cultural elite.  Yet, Jesus delights to break through those cultural norms and talk with this broken woman and offer her Himself.

I love what the late James Montgomery Boice comments, “Here Jesus who was not wearied merely by the heat.  He could have stayed in the cooler area of the Jordan.  Here was a Jesus who was wearied in his search for sinners and who had become thirsty seeking those to whom he was to offer the water of life.”

Jesus seeks us even when we don’t seek him.  He deeply cares about our lives and knows that who He is and what He has to offer is truly what we need.  It so easy for me, and I bet you, to base God’s love for you on how your life is going (if circumstances are good, he loves me if circumstances are tough, you doubt it).  But God shows His love for us at the cross.  If you doubt His love, look at the cross and not your circumstances (e.g., my dreams not being fulfilled, or whatever for you)!

Paul Miller, in his book Love Walked Among Us, insightfully describes the thought of the Samaritan woman, “Come meet a man who moved into my world!” she invites.  Come meet a man who saw right though me and yet accepted me!  Come and meet a man who loved me just as I am!  Come meet a man who showed me how empty I was!  Could this be the person, promised from God, who would save us from ourselves?”

Come meet a man who moved into your world.  Come meet a man who saw right through you and me and yet accepted us!  Come and meet a man who loved you and me just as we are!  Come meet a man who showed you and me how empty and broken we are!  Could this be the person, promised from God, who would save us from ourselves and our sins?” 

YES, He IS.  Come, drink, and find your soul satisfied in Him!  When life doesn’t make sense and you are looking for something to quench your thirst, may you know that Jesus provides the only water that can quench it!  When the job search becomes very humiliating and at time extremely disappointing, what really helps is the amazing truth that because of the cross Jesus was humiliated for me.  He willingly and sacrificially gave his life so that now God delights in me and enjoys to provide me his living and eternal water that truly satisfies my souls.

He is the Messiah—Savoir of our souls!  Here these words from the OT that promises our souls to be satisfied by Jesus.

·        Isa. 12:3:  “With joy you will draw water from wells of salvation.”

·        Ps. 42:1:  “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God”

·        In Isaiah 44 God makes a promise, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land.” (Isa. 44:3)

·        In Isaiah 55 God declares, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isa. 55:1)

·        Several times in the writings of other ancient prophets of God, Ezekiel and Zechariah, there is picture of a river of life flowing out from God’s presence in Jerusalem.

Here these words n the NT!

• John 4:13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
• In Revelation (the last book in the Bible), there is a reference to these themes in the promises for the end times, “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water.  And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:17).

Praying that you and I experience the living water of Jesus!