John 4:13-15

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

You can almost hear the urgency in her voice. She has drunk from so many wells in her life trying to find what is missing, but none of them have quenched her thirst the way Jesus is describing, “never thirst again.” You can almost hear her optimism in her voice thinking perhaps Jesus is talking about something different than anything she has experienced. Maybe this has been what she has been looking for. Maybe Jesus is describing something she hasn’t been able to find in any husband. At this point she is pulled in, connected, curious.

When we express spiritual truths we should see receptivity. We should see people asking questions. We should see people lowering their guard.

John 4:16-18

16He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17″I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

In one statement Jesus takes her vulnerability and cuts to the core of her heart. He peels back her masks, exposes her shame, and he touches her deepest wound that has occurred over years and years of pain of drawing from a well of empty relationships.

Most of us will get to this point in relationships with others and when we express spiritual conversations we will rely on a memorized gospel presentation. We will walk down the Romans road. We will start drawing a bridge on a napkin. Instead Jesus identifies her pain and speaks the truth in love.