Love Hopes All Things
I heard the story of a dog who stayed at the airport of a large city for over five years waiting for his master to return. Employees and others fed the dog and took care of him, but he would not leave the spot where he last saw his master. He would not give up hope that someday they would be reunited. If a dog’s love for his master can produce that kind of hope, how much longer should our love make hope last?
Today, we are going to journey with a woman with a very poor reputation at a well outside of the city during the heat of the day. It is here she experiences a love encounter with Jesus. Though she may have felt crushed and defeated, living a life of so much embarrassment that she had to collect water in the heat of the day to avoid ridicule from the other women. Let’s join Jesus now as he makes his way to Jacob’s Well just outside of Sychar (pronounced si'-kar).
Take a moment to read this story in John 4:1-42 before continuing on.
Loving someone requires maintaining a measure of optimism on that person’s behalf. Hope is an attitude that good will eventually come to those who may now be failing. Failure invades every Christian’s life, and it often causes others to give up on the one who fails. Yet, Christians who love will continue to hope for the best. This optimism encourages others to keep moving forward. This hope is based not on the Christian, but on Christ. The hope of each Christian is that Christ will preserve him to glory. When a brother falls, it is Christ who picks him up and makes him stand (Rom. 14:4). Christ is the one who promised to finish the work he began.
This love hopes that all will turn out well. This must also refer to the conduct of others; and it means, that however dark may be appearances; how much soever there may be to produce the fear that others are actuated by improper motives or are bad men, yet that there is a hope that matters may be explained and made clear; that the difficulties may be made to vanish.[1]
“Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
The Samaritan woman at the well probably felt that she had no future. However, Jesus had hope in this woman’s future. What do you think the rest of her story looked like? What do you believe this Samaritan woman continued to do for Jesus? What role do you think she played in her small town (and maybe even beyond)?
[1] Albert Barnes. 252.