SESSION 3 (sUNDAY mAY 15)
The foundation to everything in your life is . . . you. When we aren’t okay with who we are, when we are off and something in us isn’t right, then everything else is affected . . . relationships, spiritual life, everything. If we don’t care what’s done to us, how are we going to care what is done to others? If we don’t understand that we are worthy of being loved, how can we genuinely love others?
Jesus met a woman at a well who was hiding and avoiding others because she had secrets.
“Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Please give me a drink’ ” (John 4:6-7 NLT).
Jesus literally sat down next to this woman and basically said, “Life isn’t working out for you, is it? Let me offer you another way of living, the way you were created to live.”
“Jesus replied, ‘If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.’
‘But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,’ she said, ‘and this is a very deep well. Where would you get this living water? And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his cattle enjoyed?’
Jesus replied, ‘People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.’
‘Please, sir,’ the woman said, ‘give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to haul water’ ” (John 4:10-15 NLT).
The woman was hiding, just like Adam and Eve. We’re good at hiding too. To be in rhythm with yourself means to love yourself. When you don’t love yourself, you naturally begin not to love God. We can try to hide from others, but we can’t hide from God. Every horrible thing that you are painfully aware of, every bad thing you’ve said or done, every defect in who you are--He sees and doesn’t run away.
If the rhythm between you and God is off, maybe it’s because you are at war with yourself and you don’t like you. If the rhythm between you and others is off, maybe the issue isn’t that person you are mad at; maybe the issue is you. What does it look like for you to be in rhythm with yourself? How can you begin to like yourself?
BOTTOM LINE: We cannot be in rhythm with God or in rhythm with others without learning to be in rhythm with ourselves.