Woman at the Well - Part 4

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Finally, she asks for the gift He has come to offer. But what He has been trying to tell her hasn’t really sunk in. She’s missed a couple of steps. At the beginning of this conversation, He had told her:

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

She doesn’t know what the gift of God is. Nor does she recognize the giver. Jesus, in a tender yet expedient way helps her see both.

“Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

This handful of words brings everything into focus. The woman is immediately convinced of two things. First, that the man speaking to her really is important. She knows who He is now, or at least she is on the edge of knowing who He is. And second, that He knows who she is—that He is fully aware of her true condition and status.