Do You Want Better?

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” – John 4:7-9 
 
The Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well asks this question because something or someone in her past has broken her spirit, her sense of self-esteem, her self-confidence, and destroyed her sense of self-worth. When she considers that proposal from Jesus, He says nothing about this history of trauma and hurt. He makes no mention of her ethnicity or His. He simply asks her for water.  
 
She responds by referring to the history of hurt and pain that her people and, in all likelihood she herself, had experienced. Because of that, she responds out of her insecurity about being a Samaritan; and in that moment, her hurt delays her healing.  
 
When we’ve been broken, oftentimes the Lord just wants to know whether we want better. In the very next chapter in John 5, there is this story of a man sitting by the pool of Bethesda. Jesus asked the man “Do you want to be made whole?” And what does the man do, he starts talking about all this other stuff; stuff that may have some legitimacy, but Jesus just wants to know whether he wants better.  
 
Some of us are being hindered from being made whole because our psychological triggers of trauma keep us responding from a place of pain, rather than from a place of purpose. Another word for this place of pain and victimization is insecurity—the nagging worry that we are not good enough, not smart enough, not worthy enough, or not valuable enough.  
 
So many people struggle with the idea that they don’t measure up. They constantly go around comparing themselves and their lives to other people. They compare their house to other people’s houses, their educational achievements to other people achievements, their appearance to others, and this spirit of comparison makes them feel as if they aren’t enough. It causes them to doubt themselves, question themselves, and question who they are.  
 
But the Lord does not want us to live in this posture of insecurity. Instead, He just wants to know if we want better. So, do you want Jesus to give you better, or are you going to remain stuck and focused on the pain of your past and, in turn, prevent yourself from receiving what God has for your future?