Week 23: God Puts You First

When I was 24 years old, I met my biological father for the first time. In that moment, I wasn’t just an adult son finding his father, I also discovered five additional siblings.

Same father. Same bloodline. But socially? We were strangers. They had grown up together. I hadn’t. They shared memories. I didn’t. They shared stories, traditions, worship experiences, and inside jokes. I carried an untold history. And for years, they didn’t fully consider me part of the family.

We were socially divided, but genetically related. No matter how long it took for them to recognize it, I was always my father’s child. Always. That reality didn’t begin the day they recognized who I am and accepted me. It began the day I was born. They lived in Illinois, I lived across the border in Indiana. They shared my father’s last name, Edmonds. But I possessed my mother’s maiden name, Thigpen.

And that tension, between bloodline and social division, is exactly what we see in the woman at the well.

In the Gospel of John chapter 4, Jesus “had to” go through Samaria. These words have recently echoed in two previous devotionals. It wasn’t geography. It was divine necessity. But now we must go deeper. I have to.

I “had to” go back to this Samaritan woman because God keeps showing me that she was not a random Gentile outsider. She says in John 4:12: “Art thou greater than OUR father Jacob…?” And in verse 20: “OUR fathers worshipped in this mountain…”

“Our father Jacob.” “Our fathers.” She is claiming ancestry. Jacob is Israel. Joshua renewed covenant in that very region near Mount Gerizim (Joshua 8). The land she stood on was layered with Israelite memory. Covenant memory. Patriarchal bloodlines.

So what happened? History fractured the family. After the Assyrian conquest (2 Kings 17), foreign nations intermarried with the northern tribes. Worship blended. Identity blurred. Culturally, they became known as Samaritans. Religiously, Jews in Judea rejected them.

So here’s the distinction: Jews by ancestry were descendants of Israel (Jacob). Jews by culture and covenant practice, aligned with Jerusalem and Judea.

The Samaritan woman had Israelite bloodline. But she was culturally and socially separated. Just like me and my siblings. Connected. But divided. And yet Jesus “had to” go there.

Let’s not miss this. Jesus Himself said in Matthew 15:24 that He was sent “unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The Bridegroom came for Israel first. And where does He first plainly reveal Himself, “I that speak unto thee am He”? Not in Jerusalem. Not in the temple. Not to Nicodemus the teacher. But to a Samaritan woman standing in contested covenant territory. Why? Because bloodline precedes social rejection.

Before Judah rejected Samaria, before culture divided them, before history complicated the story — she was still connected to the patriarchs. And the Bridegroom puts His bride first. Everything about this encounter reveals who Jesus is. If you miss who the Samaritan is and the nation of lost sheep that she represents, you’ll also miss Jesus in this moment.

Yes, He is the Bridegroom. But more than that — He is the Restorer of fractured family. He crosses borders not to start something new, but to reclaim what was always His. He does not treat her like a foreigner. He speaks to her like family. He does not introduce Himself as Messiah to the religious elite first. He reveals Himself to a woman whose lineage had been socially dismissed.

God puts you first. Before culture labels you. Before people debate your identity. Before your past gets weaponized against you. He sees bloodline. He sees covenant. He sees belonging.

When I met my father, my siblings had to grow into the revelation of what was already true. But heaven didn’t need time to process. In the same way, Samaria didn’t need Jerusalem’s approval for Jesus to stop at that well. He “had to” go. Not because she was least. But because she was His.

And here is the point of what I think is my final devotional on the Samaritan woman is: Jesus does not wait for social acceptance to affirm covenant identity. He moves toward you because of who you are to Him — not who others say you are.

The Bridegroom did not overlook Samaria as the idolatrous nation we choose to preach about. He prioritized it. God puts you first. Even when others don’t recognize your place. Even when history complicates your story. Even when the family feels fractured. You were always the Father’s child. And the Son knows exactly where to find you.