During the glorious years when I would have kids napping at the same time, my husband would always call to see how my day was going. This particular day I was sobbing. Now, if you have been a mom to little one’s you might be nodding your head in agreement, as you know the struggle is oh so real. My husband then asks, “What’s wrong?” I could barely get the words out, “There was a plane crash.” Obviously this was not the answer my husband was expecting. He gasps and says, “Did we know someone on it?” I begin to explain, “On Gray’s Anatomy they were…”

Click. He hung up on me!

We all need someone to hang up on us in these moments.

A reality check that you are investing emotion/time/headspace into something that doesn’t need to involve you.

Here are just a few things I have seen recently that needed a good “hang up” before it got to this point: macing others over masks, spitting in each other’s faces, finding the faults in others and then not only pointing them out but posting them across social media, the great “return to school” debate, and countless others.

Most of the things I am seeing is not even about them, but they have chosen to invest. When we do choose to invest, what ever happened to having a conversation? When did we lose the ability to talk to someone kindly but instead decide acting in a rage or shaming them on social media is a better avenue?

John 4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “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 is making an investment.

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”
15 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.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 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.”

Can you imagine for a minute if Jesus would have handled this woman’s infidelities by shaming her in public or smearing her name through social media?

There are three self reflections we can learn from Jesus:

• Am I willing to step out of my comfort zone to truly invest in someone?
  Especially now when it is easier to stay behind a screen or to spout off our opinions on someone in a drive by of rage. If we really feel the need to address someone else’s wrong doings (most likely based on opinion) are we willing to invest the time to do so. Jesus went out of his way to change this woman’s life. Jesus crossed cultural and gender barriers to allow her to be changed.

• Am I willing to ask first?
  Jesus initiates by asking her for something (a drink) first. Have you ever noticed how it is easier to be able to have a difficult conversation after you have invested in them by asking them for advice/favor? We all want to feel needed and valuable.

• Am I willing to have a conversation?
  It is much easier to address a concern when we are kindly having a conversation. To “call out” someone by attacking verbally (hello “Karen’s) or making a social media post to shame them is not going to end well. Jesus is having a conversation with a woman who is all alone to draw water in the middle of the day. A woman who has made a lot of poor decisions and because of it, probably was avoiding the whispers of the other woman drawing water earlier in the day. Jesus is investing in a way others haven’t.

The result of this conversation can be found in John 4:39-41
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.

This is not going to come naturally for most of us. We are so ingrained in using our time to invest in all the wrong things and to not always make the best choices in how we handle the difficult moments.

Today it is time to hang up on ourselves.

A reality check of our investments and our actions.