Has life ever left you thirsty? Like joy and peace are for others and you are on the outside looking in?
Angela is joined by grace-filled truth-teller and podcast host Jennifer Sakata to reflect on the transformative power of grace in the story of the woman at the well (John 4:28). Jennifer unpacks how a single verse unlocks a message of liberation, forgiveness, humility, and new life. Together, they explore how real worship begins when grace becomes lived experience: freely received, then freely given.
Episode Highlights
- Context of John’s gospel: Rich with stories designed to help readers believe that Jesus is the Christ; packed with honest portrayals of Jesus’ encounters with outcasts, seekers, and the hungry-hearted.
- Woman at the well: Jesus intentionally meets a marginalized, wounded Samaritan woman at noon and offers her radical acceptance, a new identity, and living water that satisfies every thirst.
- The water jar: Why leaving her important, practical lifeline signified a whole new dependence on Jesus as her source and a willingness to tell her story, even to those who had wounded her.
- Jennifer’s story: Forgiving her mother after a fractured, painful childhood—how grace, extended in costly, ongoing humility, led to her own mother’s redemption and salvation.
- Practical encouragement: Grace is for you, and for “them.” Forgiveness is a process, not a graduation. Each act of receiving and extending grace rewrites our own and others’ stories.
Great Quotes
- “She left her water jar because she picked up a new lifeline: life with the Messiah who saw the real her.”
- “Only by God’s forward movement toward us—the substance of grace—can we move toward those who’ve hurt us most.”
- “None of us have it all figured out. We’re not graduates of grace; we’re all thirsty people invited to the well.”
- “If we ever forget that we’re saved by grace, we’ll never be able to bring other thirsty people along.”
- “Forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation or safety, but grace empowers us to wish our enemies well and release them.”
Resources Mentioned
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