Hidden Landmines
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While volunteering at a recovery program called Celebrate Recovery, on a Saturday, we sat around a table. At this table, in August of 2019, my wife was chosen as one of the ministry leaders, while I was not. What the current ministry leader and my wife didn’t know was that they’d stepped on a landmine. What’s worst is that I didn’t even know there was a landmine to step on. I grew distant from the ministry leader and angry/jealous of my wife.
Marriage is full of landmines that lay hidden waiting for the other spouse to step on. Its one thing for the enemy to know that they’ve laid landmine and its another thing to for the enemy to not even know that they’ve done so. Landmines always lead to pain, fighting, distrust in a relationship. When either spouse doesn’t know they’ve laid landmines and the other is about to step on it, it makes it nearly impossible to NOT fight. It all boils up to a game of chance. Can we walk through today without blowing each other up? Can we get through Sunday without a fight? It was exhausting for my wife and I.
Triggers are so powerful. Triggers are the only true time travel machine. Triggers can be music, a smell, a feeling, a phrase, and then instantly you time travel to another point in the past. Physically you are here in the present, but psychologically and physiologically you are in another place and time. Your feelings are there and your body responds in kind.
A husband can be in 2021, but his wife can be in 1995, all because of a trigger. A wife is fighting a battle she fought with an old boyfriend in 1998 with her husband in 2021. A husband can be fighting his wife in 2021 though really fighting his father in 1985. What’s further strenuous is that the spouse doesn’t know their spouse have time travelled.
The Time Traveler’s Wife was a good but frustrating movie because the wife was constantly left behind by her husband or boyfriend. He could time travel at any point of time, while doing just about anything. He, without being able to know his triggers and control them, he would leave his spouse at the most inopportune times.
If you notice, Jesus only said four words: Give. Me. A. Drink.
In a non-triggered moment, the woman would have just Jesus a drink and the story would have ended. He was just thirsty right?
Point: Jesus doesn’t just say anything! Even things that seem straightforward are themselves hidden landmines. See explosives can either destroy or clear a way through an obstacle. And when Jesus desires to reach our heart, which is full of obstacles, sometimes He needs to clear the way.
The simple phrase:“Give me a drink” cleared the way to:
Historical tension between two people groups - Jews (southern kingdom) and Samaritans (northern kingdom). Which goes back even further between Jeroboam and Rehoboam.
Culture tension between male and female
Her relationship status and behavioral patterns
Point: Jesus is not interested in remaining in a surface level conversation with you. He always wants to get to the heart of the matter. The heart is where you true beliefs rest. He knows we won’t turn to Him unless He can change us at this level.
Marriage is the union of two individuals who not only bring themselves to the marriage or their extended family:
their world view,
their core beliefs,
their coping mechanisms,
their hurts,
their survival instincts i.e., their way of controlling and manipulating their surroundings to keep themselves safe
and ALL the triggers related to these hidden landmines
Point: People want Jesus to be predictable, but He’s anything but predictable. He’s reliable. He is trustworthy, but He is not predictable. One thing He is for sure is - intentional.
And he had to pass through Samaria.
John writes that Jesus “had” to pass through Samaria. He had to travel a long distance. He had to be wearied. He had to be thirsty so He could say one simple request to a Samaritan woman - give me a drink. Because He knew their was a thirsty woman who need Jesus to go deeper than the depth of Jacob’s well.
When my kids or wife look bothered, I am quick to ask what’s wrong. Usually the answer they give me is a surface level response. Through the difficult moments of my marriage, much to do with my infidelity, I had to learn to provoke the conversation to go deeper with my wife. If I heard the response “I’m angry”, I knew I needed to go deeper.
Many of us want to stay at the surface level. Understandably so. Who wants to go digging in their backyard looking for landmines? Who wants to run the risk of opening something up they don’t think they are ready to deal with, let alone with another person looking at you while you do so?
Somewhere down the line we were taught that vulnerability was dangerous and safety lied at the surface. Stay at the surface and you’ll be safe or digger deeper at your own risk!
But Jesus knows we need to go deeper. Risky. Dangerous. Scary. - Yes.
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
David says “Try me” and know my thoughts. This phrase “Try me” literally means to melt down the metal to determine the nature of it. David is asking God to melt his firm and harden exterior…to melt the hardness of his heart to see what’s hidden inside.
My wife’s response of “I’m angry” was not the truth. It was the harden exterior protecting what was hidden inside. What led to her healing was hidden inside of that harden exterior that God needed to melt. Just like He needed to melt this Samaritan’s hard heart and reach the treasure hidden inside.
Point: What we think is a landmine, He calls hidden gold. Its dangerous to us, but it is a diamond to Him. It is scary to us, but its a sapphire to Him.
I wasn’t angry with the ministry leader or my wife when I wasn’t selected as a leader. I was triggered and transported back to a unpleasant emotion and thought - I and my life will never be significant or will matter. I’ll always be in the background because while other’s have something that makes them special, I don’t. I don’t want to be left out or left behind. I don’t want to feel like I don’t matter.
This is the space where Jesus get’s to ask the real question: Who said that you don’t matter? Who said your life is not significant? Who said you’d be left behind or alone?
Whether He has to walk until He’s wearied and thirsty or make me upset - He’ll do whatever it takes to make me go deeper.
Because Jesus knows what’ll cost us if we don’t go deeper. He knows what it’ll cost us to stay at the surface.
It’ll cost us
The marriage if we don’t.
The friendship if we don’t.
Years of enjoying life here on earth if we don’t.
Our sibling relationship or friendship with our kids when they get older.
Knowing Jesus and all the people who could have known Him through our lives.
Point: At the same time Jesus needs to go deeper with us, He knows we need to go deeper with Him. Knowing Jesus on the surface is different than our core belief being founded on who He is.
Let’s unpack that a bit.
Jesus loves me because He died for my sins is different than me seeing how He used an addiction to porn to teach me that there is no chain He can’t break to get to me. Or, even better, there’s no dead or destructive marriage that He can’t raise from the dead. Or, there’s no yoke of depression He can’t yank off of me in an instant.
One is a scriptural fact and the other is a life lesson gain because I went deeper with Jesus.
When you are thinking of suicide, which one do you think will keep you from going through with it?
When you struggling, which one keeps you moving forward?
He wants you to know Him as
Jireh
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Are you content with water from the well or are you willing to dig deeper?
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