The First Encounter

There is truly something special about that first encounter with Jesus in which His life changing power is allowed to work in our hearts. Anyone who has chosen the way of Jesus has a history of many powerful moments with Jesus, but the one which sets the course for the rest of life is one which can never be forgotten.  The Samaritan woman who met Jesus under the heat of the noon day sun had no expectation which included meeting someone like Jesus, but there He was as if He had waiting for her all her life.

 

At first she did as so many of us have done.  She sought to push Him away.  She threw up all the defense systems she had used to protect herself from vulnerability and love.  Judgment was something with which she was well acquainted, but freely given grace and unconditional acceptance was not a part of her daily experience.  As is the case with so many of us, in the beginning she did not know what to do with someone like Jesus so she tried to escape.  Even as we run for some hiding place, Jesus comes running behind us.  He did not give up on this woman and He does not give up on us.

 

As long as I live and am able to remember, I will count with gratitude that night He waited for me as I knelt beside a bed that had become an altar.  It was a moment of confessing that my life was a mess.  It was a moment of a forgiveness I still do not understand.  It was a moment of knowing I belonged.  It was a moment of beginning.  I asked Jesus to come into my life as Savior and He did.  I have never looked back at that moment with regret, only joy and overwhelming thanksgiving.