Ask!

If I could say just one thing to people before I die, I would quote John 4:10, Jesus' words to the woman at the well:  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.

All the religions of the world come down to this one thing -- communion with God, receiving the blessings of His own life that He wants to pour out into our hearts.  Even the pagan philosophers knew what the goal of life was; they just did not know how to get from where to are now (A) to where we need to be (B).  Plato wrote about absolute Truth, Beauty, Wisdom, from which all earthly truth, beauty, and wisdom derive.  He knew it existed; he knew it was our ultimate goal -- but he could not know the Bridge, or the means, to attain it.

Religion has provided paths for man to reach up towards God; the paths differ according to culture and era.  Some are very difficult to follow; others seem to allow anything at all.  But it is not religion that saves us; the purpose of religion is to introduce us to the One Who can and does bring us "the Gift of God."  It is not what we do that brings us into communion with God; it is only what we will allow God to do in us and for us that cleanses us from the sin that bars our way to full union with Him. 

Richard Rohr puts it this way: Nothing in this world is an end in itself, not even the Church.  Only God is an end; everything else is a means, a means toward that end.  Only God saves; nothing else can save us.  Not the law, not the Bible, not the Pope, not the sacraments, not even the Church.  The Church is God's free gift to us, through which we come to hear his Word and allow Him to save us.  When we make means into ends, we forget that.  We think we are putting God first, but really we are putting ourselves first (The Great Themes of Scripture: Old Testament, p. 60). 

If we think we can meet God by our own effort, we are deceiving ourselves.  The best we can do is to do what Jesus said and "ask Him" for the living water that God wants to pour out on us.  Then, that Gift of God will lead us surely to eternal life.  In the Book of Ephesians, Paul tells wives to "submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior....Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or winkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Eph. 5).

It is true that we must be holy as God is holy if we are to share His life and His Spirit.  But my point here is that we can do nothing to make ourselves holy; we can only submit to Christ, who constantly offers us living water for our souls, and who daily cleanses us through His all -powerful word.  He alone saves us; He alone makes us holy and "without blemish." 

We can trust Him.  The woman at the well wanted to know if she had been taught correctly about the right place to worship God.  All of us want to know if we too have been taught correctly about how to worship God.  There is only One who can tell us the Truth.  If we come to Him, we will know the Truth, and He will lead us into all Truth.  And then, He promised us, "The Father and I will come and dwell in [us]. 

We don't want it to be that easy; we want to earn our reward -- but Jesus laid down one condition -- ask and receive.  The adventure of asking and living in His Promise and watching it come true is life's greatest pleasure and reward!