4Women ...for women searching relevance in life

“O Lord, you… know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.” Psalm 139:1-4 NLT

What sort of feeling do you experience in response to these words? Is it relief, reassurance and comfort or perhaps anxiety, concern and apprehension?

Before you make your decision, consider the Samaritan woman whom Jesus came to meet. John 4:4-26 Jesus revealed to the woman that he knew everything about her. Jesus told her he knew that she had had five husbands and that the current man she was living with was not her husband. John 4:16-18 What was the Samaritan’s woman response? She seemed excited and enthusiastic… “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" John 4:28-29 But what really motivated her enthusiastic reaction? Was it that Jesus made known his supernatural powers, or was it because Jesus revealed to this woman that he knew much more about her than her five husbands, he knew her as a person – her heart and mind. Her complicated life does not make it obvious that she was searching for Jesus Christ. But at one point in their conversation she says to Jesus, "I know that the Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." And Jesus, the Christ, had come and he sat by the well where she would come and draw water, to let her know that he was the person she was waiting for. Isn’t this why she got excited about “the man who told her everything she ever did”?

Psalm 139CEV begins: “You have looked deep into my heart, LORD, and you know all about me.” Jesus had looked deep into the Samaritan woman’s heart and he knew all about her. Jesus knew she was searching for him.

Psalm 139 ends with: “Look deep into my heart, God, and find out everything I am thinking.” Can we ask God to look deep into our hearts with the same certainty and enthusiasm as the Samaritan woman?