Jesus Speaks to Women: In the Still of the Noon Hour

How precious is time?  It is probably the most valuable commodity we possess, and do we really possess it?  We do not truly own time.  It is an abstract concept that tricks us into believing we have unlimited amounts of it, until the tyranny of the clock hits us in the face with its incessant ticking, nagging us, torturing us, scaring us, pushing us ever so closer to the final second of our lives on this earth...

It is no wonder that Ephesians 5: 16 exhorts us to "redeem the times for the days are evil."  They are evil, indeed, and time is too fleeting to spend it all immersed into such darkness.  This command to making the most out of every opportunity is a double-edged sword, however, for we might mistake it for a mandate to never stop doing, going, moving...when, the true redemption of the times might, perhaps hide behind the noisy turbulence of the days...in the corner of quiet tranquility.

The noon hour was a lonely hour by Jacob's well.  It was a neglected hour at this spot.  Yet, it was the hour an even lonelier woman had her divine encounter with the Living Water.  It was at the quiet heat of the noon hour when Jesus and the Samaritan woman spent about 30 verses together.  The exchange between the two is one of the longest, if not the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and any one person in the Bible...and it happened then, in the still of the noon hour.

How am I redeeming my time?  Am I choosing to go to the well to encounter the Living Water?  or Am I opting to dive in even deeper into the maddening and complicated, rushing current of this world and its alluring call to stay ever-busy, and frazzled?  

I'm afraid, way too often, I choose the wrong road...Let's meditate on this for a while, and...

May the Holy Spirit guide us by clearly mapping out the road to the moment when we can still our soul and meet the One Who Can Take Care of Us All!  Amen!