Stuck In The Past

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” – John 4:9 
 
If you want to rebound from brokenness, you can’t let your hurt hinder your healing. So many people miss the blessings God has for them because they allow their brokenness to keep them in bondage. It’s as if they have PTSD, and struggle to move forward in their future because they are still haunted by what happened in their past. It’s like a shackle that is locked on their minds, and locked on their spirit, and they approach every experience in the present as a reminder or a trigger of something that happened in their past.  
 
That is what this woman at the well seems to experience. Here, Jesus is inviting her to experience something greater than what she came for, and rather than embracing what God has before her, she’s stuck initially on what’s behind her.  
 
Notice the question she asks Jesus when he offers her living water. She says, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” She asks that question because there is a history of cultural and social tension between Jews and Samaritans that resulted in ethnic and religious rejection from Jews who felt that Samaritans were in some way racially tainted because of their mixed ancestry.  
 
Obviously, this woman is still hurt by that because here she is having an encounter with a man who is talking about her future, but she is still hung up on the pain, albeit legitimate, that has transpired in her past. She can’t walk forward into what God has before her because she is wrestling with all these issues around her. She can’t be open to what God wants to do in her next season because she is still hung up on what happened in her last one.  
 
There are a lot of people in that same place, unable to embrace what’s before them because they are hung up in what’s behind them. My prayer is that if this is something you struggle with, that you would ask the Lord to free you from focusing on your past. Instead, ask Him to help you embrace the blessings and the hope He has for your future so that you can fully experience all that He has to offer you moving forward.