This Samaritan woman tried to fill the emptiness in her life with multiple relationships. But it didn’t work. When you try to find in anyone else what can only be found in Christ, you place so much stress on the relationship that it will break under the weight of it. Why did Jesus say, ‘You have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband’ (v. 18 NIV)? Because one of the first things hurting people need to do is break the pattern of using other people as a narcotic to dull the pain of their inner void. The more you medicate the symptoms, the less chance you have of allowing God to treat the cause. The other dysfunctional tendency that can exist is that you keep increasing the dosage. When you become increasingly dependent on others rather than on God to create a feeling of wholeness in your life, you’re abusing your relationships. Clinging to people is very different from loving them. It’s not so much a declaration of your love for them as a crying out of your need for them. Like lust, it’s extremely selfish. It’s taking, instead of giving. Jesus quenched the Samaritan woman’s thirst with His Word, saying, ‘Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ (v. 14 NIV). And she went back home totally changed, for that’s what Jesus does. Listen to her testimony: ‘Come, see a man who told me everything’ (v. 29 NIV). And what Jesus did for her, He will do for you today.
