unworthy – Song Dive

Woman at the Well

The next entry for my Blog is Woman at the Well, which was written Jesse Reeves, Olivia Lane, and Steve Fee. It was first released in April 9, 2021. A link to Olivia Lane singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog. The link also includes a film clip from the TV Series “The Chosen.”

Woman at the Well

I heard a story from the Bible
When I was just a little girl
About a broken-hearted woman
Who met the Savior of the world

Thought it was just another story
One that the preacher man would read
But as I’m sitting here at home
Drinking red wine all alone
I think that woman might be me

‘Cause tonight I feel just like
The woman at the well
Wondering how someone could love me
When I can’t love myself
But You want me as I am and that sounds crazy
I guess maybe that’s why grace is so amazing

Staring at that empty bottle
I swear I caught a glimpse of Him
He met me right there at the bottom
And turned that wine to living water
And taught me how to love again

Yeah, tonight I feel just like
The woman at the well
Wondering how someone could love me
When I can’t love myself
But You want me as I am and that sounds crazy
I guess maybe that’s why grace is so amazing

It’s no longer just a story when I read it (when I read it)
‘Cause I’ve seen Him for myself and I believe it

Just like the story from the Bible
I heard when I was just a girl
I’m the broken-hearted woman
Who met the Savior of the world

This is a song that brought tears of sadness and tears of joy in my heart as I recalled the story in the bible, then listened to the words of this song, and then saw it come to life on TV when I watched an episode of The Chosen. It is amazing when you read the scripture, feel the pain of the woman at the well, the empathy of Jesus, followed by the great joy he has brought to this woman who has been living a life of hopelessness.

The bible has many passages that describe Jesus, the son of God and savior of the world, interacting with people and explaining who he is and his mission upon coming to earth. One of these passages, which is in the book of Matthew chapter 9, tells us about Jesus meeting with a woman at the well. This woman had a life that was in turmoil, she had already been through multiple marriages, and never seemed to find happiness. When you sit in church and hear these stories, they don’t always seem real because they are not necessarily hitting close to home. Even though the message is true, maybe it doesn’t seem to apply to us at the time and is someone else’s story, not yours or mine. We hear the message, perhaps we retain it, and then we go on with our lives.

As we journey down the road in our lives, we perhaps start struggling with seemingly everything going on in our life, and gradually our world starts falling apart. Maybe we are feeling alone and the deeper in despair we fall, we start believing there is no hope. In this song, the individual is sitting home all alone, drinking some wine, and dwelling on all of the times she has failed in her life. The realization comes that perhaps she is just like the woman at the well from the story she heard in church long ago; a totally messed up life with no escape in sight. Maybe she hasn’t gone through the same type of travails as the woman, but she feels she has failed in her decisions and has lost all hope as her despair rages on. She has trouble loving herself, so how could anyone else ever love her. Perhaps she, just as the woman at the well, has gone through multiple relationships, marriages, or failures in life. She feels as if she will never be loved again and that she is unworthy of love.

At just the right time, this example of Jesus’ love in the bible has finally grabbed the singer’s attention, she finally understands that Jesus accepts us just as we are. All he asks is that we accept him and the eternal life he offers each of us. He knows we will change once we accept him, but he doesn’t hold any of our past against us. We are told about his grace and forgiveness in Romans 4:7. “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.”

As the singer sits there alone and looks down into the bottom of the empty wine bottle, she suddenly catches a fleeting glimpse of the face of Jesus. It sounds sort of odd to catch a glimpse of our savior in the bottom of a wine bottle, but it is his way of saying I am with you wherever you go and ready to pull you up when you are ready to leave your misery. It is so much easier when we finally understand that we don’t look up to find Jesus, we look beside us and to the outreached hand. He is ready to give us eternal life, that living water, whenever we are ready to accept his hand. We find this passage in John 4:13-14, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

I believe that all of us, at some point in our lives, have the hopeless feeling felt by the woman at the well. Some of the mistakes we made were our own fault, and some were probably caused by others. The woman at the well struggled with marriages and relationships, some of the issues were perhaps hers and some not. Whatever the situation, Jesus is not concerned about who is at fault. He doesn’t judge us by our past; his eyes are only focused on eternity. I hope you have partaken of the holy water.

Click to Hear Olivia Lane Sing Woman at the Well, Includes Film Clip from the TV Series – The Chosen

Come As You Are – Entry #4 of 5

Today I will focus on the following portion of the song,

All who are broken
Lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home
You’re not too far
So lay down your hurt
Lay down your heart
Come as you are

Are you broken? What does it even mean to be broken? These are difficult questions, but the reality is we are all broken. How we are broken differs for each of us. A person who is broken is someone who feels as if they are not worthy, they are undeserving, they have lost their way in life, and perhaps as if they are alone in a cold dark world. Maybe our brokenness comes from actual or perceived failures in our lives, the way others have treated us, where we live, or just the general environment around us. It is easy for the broken person to fall into a state of depression as they feel they loneliness and failure seeping in. I also believe we sometimes become broken due to a tragedy in our lives, such as a loss of a loved one. Not that we have done anything wrong, but there is now a hole in our heart that we are not sure how to mend.

With a defeated and broken spirit, we hang our heads, our demeanor changes, and the way we carry ourselves reflects how we feel. We essentially have a broken spirit and have given up on our life, we have become the prodigal son that the bible tells us about in Luke 15:11-32. It is during these times, in our darkest hours, that we need to lift up our hearts and faces to God. In this time of our greatest need, he alone can heal the pain and loneliness we are feeling. Psalms 34:18 reminds us that God is always there to take care of us: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

He feels our pain and he asks us to feel his love and open our hearts to his peace and his will for your life. He heals the brokenness and reminds us we are his children and nothing can take away his love for us or the plans he has for us. It doesn’t matter if we have wandered away from God and that we have not been opening our hearts to him as we should, he still loves us and has his hand open to us at all times. Yes it might be challenging for us to hold our head up again, to admit our failures, confess our sins, and admit how we have turned away from him. We just need to come back to him and put our pain, suffering, and brokenness at his feet. As he reaches out to us, we will feel his warm, his love, and I am sure a look of compassion and a smile would be on his face if we could see it.

All we need to do, is to humble ourselves before God and give him all our suffering and our pain and he will heal our broken heart and our broken spirit. We only need to come as we are.

Redeemed – Entry #3 of 4

This Blog entry will address the following lines, the next Blog will complete this song:

All my life I have been called unworthy
Named by the voice of my shame and regret
But when I hear You whisper, “Child lift up your head”
I remember oh God, You’re not done with me yet

Do you ever feel unworthy? Perhaps we have been called unworthy as the song states, but perhaps we are the ones who tell ourselves we are unworthy. I believe we have a tendency to equate failure with unworthiness. By definition, unworthy means not deserving of attention or respect, not deserving of acceptance, and not suitable. People often feel they are unworthy because of failures. Maybe we did make a mistake on our job, does that mean we are unworthy of that job? We may feel as if we did a bad job as a parent, does that mean we are unworthy of being a parent? Our last relationship may have ended in an ugly way, does that mean we are unworthy of a positive lasting relationship? More of these questions and doubts come from inside us and from Satan as he tries to discourage us. We berate ourselves over what we have done wrong, where we have failed, and therefore give Satan a stronger hold over us. He is always there speaking in our ear and telling us how unworthy we are and reminding us of all of our failures. He does whatever he can to get us to listen to him and his voice of shame and regret and to keep us from listening to the Holy Spirit Christ has given us. It doesn’t mean we have lost our faith in Christ, it means we are trying to drive our lives instead of looking to our Savior for guidance, support, and love. We are hanging our heads as we go through our woe is me life perspective. The net is we end up serving the wrong master, even though our soul belongs to Jesus based on our salvation. All of this is so easy to say and we all end up in this place at some time, but how do we get out?

Once again, the songwriters tell how Christ reaches out to us and reminds us that he is always there. He is the one who whispers in our ear and tell us to be strong and hold up our head. This may be a whisper, but it is one that comes across with power. Our Savior and Comforter tells us to lift up our head and remember what he did for us so we could have eternal happiness and reward. Note that we are called his child, we are always one of his; regardless of the situation we are facing. This loud and resonating whisper brings us to our knees as we remember that we are always a work in progress and will never achieve perfection in our physical lives. God’s plan for us takes us through this lifetime on earth, he has things he wants us to do. There are so many things in his plan that requires action from us. He is always preparing and training us for the tasks ahead. Maybe he wants us to bring a neighbor to Christ, perhaps he brings a stranger to us that he wants us to help, maybe he wants us to be a stronger light to all of those around us. He could be looking at us to work in the church, to be part of missions, to work with children, or work in a service capacity. We need to always remember we may be the only Jesus some people will ever see. The world watches us every day to see how we respond as Christians. Our actions and our words determine the strength of our light in this world. To be what God wants us to be, we need to grow our faith and witness every day. I know the above is a daunting path but think of what Christ has done for us and what lies ahead of us. Are the expectations of God greater than the reward? I don’t think so.