From Proximate to Personal

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Zacharias, Ravi. The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 24: From Proximate to Personal

Opening Thought: I begin today by quoting Zacharias, “He [Christ] moved her from the abstract to the concrete, from the concrete to the proximate, from the proximate to the personal. She had come to find water for the thirst of her body. He fulfilled a greater thirst, that of her soul.” This is a clear reference to the biblical story of the woman at the well. The woman at the well, could be seen as all that is oppressed in that time of society, and bound and burdened by the need of survival. In her efforts to seek out water the woman comes upon Jesus who bridges the transcendence of God with the reality of this woman’s story. The seeking of water is a necessity for material survival, but the seeking of truth is what opens us up to the eternal. A verse in this story reads as follows, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” [John 4:23] There is a simplistic beauty to this claim, that the true worshiper is the one who seeks in truth, who no matter if they are Jewish like the line of Jesus, or Samaritan like the woman.

The devotional begins with: John 4:13-15

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but 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.” 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.”

Second Thought: When we think about the idea of drinking the water from Jesus, we think of the language of the spring of eternal life, where you will never thirst again. I feel that there is a possibility for misconception here, where someone could assume that being spiritually satiated by these waters may mean they no longer would crave these waters. I want to offer and personal experience to help clarify any possible misconceptions. Before university I spent some time looking at religion and theology, but I never gave it too much dedicated thought. When I started first year university, I took an intro to Christianity course, and I found myself speaking to my father one night as I worked on my studies, and he said to me, “have you gotten the bug yet?” What he meant was that in his experience, those who dove into a search for truth in God would often get this hunger for it, where suddenly you desired it more and the only thing that would satiate that longing was more diving into the theology and complexities of God, the Bible, and the person of Jesus. My father was right, the more and more I dove into it, the more I felt satiated but the more satiation I could take in, I was always thirsting for God but never burdened by the thirst.

Continual Work: Read John 4:1-26 and put yourself in the role of the woman at the well, if you were to find Jesus there waiting to speak with you, how do you think the conversation would go? What might be blocking you from diving into the water of eternal life?

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I am feeling a bit of the weight of the world on my shoulders this week. Sometimes we take on burden we cannot control, or sometimes we feel a call to take on burden we can help and support with, but the idea is overwhelming. This week I feel like I have a bit of both, which is a good thing if you think about it. Knowledge of limitation and the knowledge of ability both drive meaning and purpose into our lives, however, meaning and purpose never comes with easement. Either way, this week, the context of this burdened feeling I can connect with Christ baring the burden of the world upon the cross, the eternal speaks to my finite context. So, I call out to the eternal to help inspire my internal struggle, to remind me to lift my burdens to God, and move through life’s calling and complexity with faith and steadfast determination.  

Prayer for your day: Lord, we pray for all those at the well seeking to quench their thirst, we pray for those seeking to be sustained by the world, when they should be seeking the truth, the Spirit and the living well of Christ’s love, mercy, justice and Being. God bring us to the living waters, fill us up and let our cups overflow, so that we may got out and help to hydrate this world. Amen.

Artistic Close: If you ever have the chance to go to Niagara Falls, I strongly recommend it, and if you have the means to get onto the boats and get to the base of the falls, and feel the magnitude of the pouring waters, in the moment, take a breath and remember that those waters are just a droplet compared to the oceans that pour out from the living Christ.   

Niagara Falls, New York. Original image from Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress collection. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.