Are the Rumors True?

Deeper Dive

In July, I took up walking again. When we moved to this neighborhood (it’s the first place we’ve lived with sidewalks throughout) I started walking daily.

That was ten years ago, but why did I stop walking? I developed various ailments. If it wasn’t my knee giving me trouble, it was my ankle, my foot, my pinky toe. Not trying to be funny, but this repeated itself over and again. (For you youngsters, it is called aging.)

Anyway, I am now on a mission to take better care of myself. They say walking is a good habit for a woman my age. They say a lot of things, though.

What if what they’re telling us is just a rumor?

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On one of my recent walks through the neighborhood, I listened to Scripture in the Bible app. My chronological daily reading is currently in the gospels, which I love. My preference is to hold my Bible in my hands as I read, but occasionally I will listen as I walk.

This particular day, as I walked along, the narrator in the Bible app recited Scripture from John 4.1-30 straight to my ears.

“He had to go through Samaria on the way…and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well…”

So, I’m walking and listening to the story of Jesus walking, and he arrives at Jacob’s well. “Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’”

This woman would have been quite confused because, in her day, Jews (and especially men) did not speak to Samaritans. But as shocking as that must have been, she and Jesus proceeded to have a conversation.

She said, “Why are you asking me for a drink?” Jesus told her that if she would ask, he would give her living water. To help her understand, Jesus explained, “…those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again.”

Eventually, the woman, “Please, sir…give me this water!”

The conversation continued and Jesus finally told her, “I Am the Messiah!” Somehow, she understood. Her eyes were opened, and the Scripture says she left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone.

That day, what the Samaritan woman shared with everyone she met became a “rumor” that would spread like wildfire.

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Suddenly, as I’m walking, all I could hear in my head were the lyrics to a modern worship song that says…  It is true, it’s all true. Everything they said about you!¹