Are you thirsting for something more? Is there an ache in your soul? A restlessness? A sense of something missing?

I have read the Bible and there is much to be gleaned from it, but the one thing that always stands out for me is how Jesus treated women.

Like the Samaritan woman at the well, for instance. Jesus asked her for a drink of water. She responded “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus didn’t allow social customs or barriers to stop him.

What comes after astounds me. Please read it for yourself:

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

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.”

He told her, “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.” (John 4)

Jesus did not judge her. He did not criticize her. He did not throw anything in her face or use what He knew against her.

Here is another example, the woman caught in adultery.

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8)

Again, Jesus did not judge or condemn her. Time and time again, I see Jesus’ unfathomable love and compassion poured out to women.

It comforts me to know, that no matter how sinful, dirty, broken and bruised we are… we can always come to Him and He won’t reject us.

If we lived in this world long enough, we are broken in some way. We have a void. We are all chasing after something, thinking that it will somehow satisfy us or fill the emptiness in our hearts. But, it never does.

I’m not religious. I believe in Jesus. I believe He died for sinful me. I believe He loves me when I don’t even know how to love myself. My faith in Him is what has gotten me through every crazy storm in my life. If it wasn’t for His grace and unconditional love, I don’t know where I would be today.

I don’t have the answers, but this I know… nothing and no one in this life will satisfy your inner longings. You can chase for an entire lifetime, thinking success, money, fame, etc… will fill the emptiness. But only God has the ability to do that.

Do you feel like you have been chasing after things because you feel like something is missing in your life?