Jeremiah’s portrayal of a potter reworking a piece of marred clay is an early example of a quality control test. Jesus’ encounter with the Woman at the Well is a story about someone grimly tested in a difficult life – we don’t know why she had had so many relationships or why they failed, but we can imagine the pain and emotional wreckage. Without God she was seriously off the rails – a broken person.

Strangely, broken people are often God’s best candidates. They know only too well what doesn’t work for them, and they know their need of something beyond themselves. Going it in their own strength hasn’t worked for them, and they know it.

If you drive a recent car, it offers you a much higher degree of crash protection than cars made 20 or 30 years ago. Nowadays they are designed to crumple and absorb impact – and your model will have been submitted to Thatcham vehicle testing and ‘crashed’ under controlled conditions, to receive its safety ratings. Those tests are designed to cause failure - but failure is helpful to show what happens, when and to make design improvements that enhance safety for all of us.

Does God cause the tests?

In the desert, Exodus 16:3-4 portrays God testing the Israelites – but it was in the context of His provision:

There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there He tested them.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

To the extent that God Himself tests us, it is a testing of our determination towards Him:

Psalm 7:9

Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,

and may You establish the righteous —

You who test the minds and hearts,

O righteous God!

Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonika, reinforces this:

1 Thess. 2:4

…just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.

It becomes more and more clear as we go through Scripture that God does not play games. He is not the sender of trials and tests, but He allows these things to impact us – and test our hearts in the way we respond. Will it be a response of blame (“Where were you, God?") or of growing in steadfastness and faith, as James writes:

James 1:2-3

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

This is another way of saying that through trials we become broken to our own ambitions and desires and self-importance. A bit of success can be toxic – we can so easily become ‘up ourselves’ and at that point our ability to be used by God is severely compromised.

God is not so much looking for broken people, as people who exhibit the diamond-like quality of brokenness. The Woman at the Well had plenty of this, which is why the story seems to unfold so quickly

  1. Jesus told her He needed her help; at this point this Samaritan woman, who was used to rejection, knew that she was accepted.

  2. He explained how she could know God in a real way, the experience of receiving living water in a heavenly relationship. She became a true worshipper

  3. He introduced Himself as the Messiah of God; this was something she could see for herself, and at this point she gained a new identity. She who was a despised nobody became a somebody, who had personally met with the Messiah.

When you feel like the pot on the wheel that has collapsed, a test is occurring. Will you treat failure as an opportunity for growth and turn to God for the same three things that Jesus gave the woman?

• Acceptance (unconditional love)

• Being reminded of who you are: child of God, friend of Jesus, known by Him personally

• Close to God through worship

TO THINK ABOUT OR DISCUSS

  • Do you have a story about a trial that brought you closer to God in brokenness?

  • Why is brokenness so elusive, and also so vital?

  • One to try out on each other: How would you explain to someone (might or might not be a Christian) that their perception of failure was an opportunity to turn to God, receive His love and grow? Marks deducted for Christian-speak or other religious jargon!