Chapter 10: The Seventh Man, my Sabbath, my husband, my rest...

It is well!! That is what people say when something really bad happens and they mean to console. A lot of times we find that there is a constant search for satisfaction in our lives, there is a constant need to fill a gap. From the time we are born till our death we are burning with need, we worry, we struggle with the fact that the most important questions have not yet gotten an answer, we “thirst”.

You see even as children we are searching to get an answer for something that we can’t even identify. I would see a nice pair of shoes as a child in a store and desire it, when I get it I’ll be fed up of it! when I was younger I desired attention from my Mother, and when I got it, I took it for granted because I realized it wasn’t what I wanted. If you watch a child long enough, you would see that the very thing he is crying for, he might not really need it but he knows he just has to get it first to be sure if he needs it or not. Of course it doesn’t take long before he starts crying for something else.

A couple of years ago I had a thirst to be a part of the crowd, I wanted to smoke cigarettes, weed, heroin, shoot up, I wanted to drink, I wanted to party, be at the night club every club night and not miss a single opportunity, buy the latest and the best clothes for recognition. After I had satisfied my hunger for something, I immediately was hit on the head by the fact that I was even emptier than I was before I sorted out the initial need. I would go to the clubs with the mind set that I would have the best woman and that I would get the best high ever, but after the whole night had passed, it would feel like I had just spent valuable time doing nothing, like I was just totally dry and empty, and still hungry to satisfy my emptiness at the same time.

I dated, fornicated, got depressed(not clinically though) lots of times, cried when I was alone, cried when my best friend (he was someone i depended on for a lot of things, to me a true brother) and my father died, I did not understand, I would ask, “if all these were made to give us a sense of satisfaction, why do I keep going back for more, why do I depend on them for hapiness and keep getting dissapointed, why would I call a man 'my father' only for him to die? Should a 'father' die?” I did not understand what it was I was in need of until I got to know God. The bible says there a is friend that sticks closer than a brother!! A great comforter and a supernatural consoler.

In the last part of Genesis 3 :16 God said to Eve:

Your desire will be for your HUSBAND, and he will rule over you.

When I read this particular verse I was really surprised because today we see a very strong desire in a growing woman to be married at a certain age, she has a desire for her husband and she dreams for the day she would be married to him, only to find out that she doesn’t want to be ruled by him. This doesn't only apply to Eve or women but to us all who where born into the flesh of Adam our spirits are constantly in search for something that seems to elude our expectation every time we get to a point in life when it seems we have arrived. It seems we are in search of "a husband to rule over us"!

On the other hand after we find fulfillment in our marriage and in our jobs and we feel we have reached the pinnacle of success in life with so much money, we find out that all the wealth, love of family, and children and all still hasn’t answered the questions of restlessness. Our hearts seem to have an insatiable desire for something that seems not to be, a feeling of an eternal dilemma, eternal hopelessness. All the sex, all the fun, all the fulfillment, all the money, cannot seem to satisfy the desire of the heart.

Like in genesis 3: 16, God puts an unquenchable thirst for something in our hearts as human beings, but what we do not know is that this thirst is actually intended to turn us to him, but of course the devil is always there to use it to his advantage. Though our hearts are wicked, and in reality there is no desire for God or anything that is Godly inside of us, it is still that unquenchable thirst for worldly fulfillment and satisfaction that God uses to draw us to himself, an example of this is that of Apostle Paul who went about zealously persecuting Christians like a blood "thirsty" lion, God turned that thirst around and used it to glorify his own name.

You would observe that a lot of celebs end up dead due to drug overdose, suicide, one vice or the other because they still feel incomplete even after so much success, on the other hand some people look for love and get heart broken until they give up and decide that there is no love or hope of love. They opt instead to leave their life uselessly (according to the world "free falling") and we ask and wonder why they just died hopelessly or why is such a beautiful girl living her life like it is worth nothing???. After struggling for so long however, by Gods grace some of us find a new desire…..The desire for knowledge, and for those of us who are fortunate, we find Jesus, our Husband.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done". - Genesis 2

God requires us to rest in Christ Jesus because through his death on the cross there is no need for us to struggle to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for fulfilment in this world. There is no need to look for satisfaction from man anymore because Christ has become our day of rest even our Sabbath.

In the story of the Samaritan woman, the bible tells us that Jesus met a woman who had been with 6 men in her life, 5 she had married, but was unmarried to the 6th.

Notice what Jesus asked her for, and what he offered. I would like to highlight the “THIRST”, “WATER” and “HUSBAND” aspect of this story in relation to this woman’s life; in fact it is amazing how the whole setting is about our very lives. We all have a great deal of Eve and the samaritan woman in us, remember God had said to Eve “your desire would be for your husband” and this woman’s case was a perfect example of what God was talking about, she kept on going from man to man looking for her prince of peace, looking for a husband she didn’t know she would never find in a man until she met JESUS, who was the 7th man in her life( he represents the seventh day of Gods work, completeness of his work, and rest). Remember he told the teachers of the law that he was the lord of the Sabbath, I say he is our sabbath and somehow we always get to meet Jesus after a lot of very harsh conditions we find our selves in.

In the story Jesus asked her for water, then turned and offered her water even before she could bring him water in response to his request. How completely senseless!!! Little do we know that Jesus was looking to fulfill the word of God concerning her life. He had identified her “thirst”, this woman had spent so many years fetching water from a well whose water could never satisfy her hearts desire, a well in the heart of the previous six men(note 6 is mans number, a number of imperfection but 7 represents eternal perfection or a perpetual rest from your struggle, a complete death and redemption from the curse on Eve and it is Gods number), and Jesus was the 7th man, Jesus was her sabbath day of eternal solace from an award winning broken heart.

Remember Genesis says God “rested” on the seventh day or the “Sabbath”.

In Matthew chapter 12, the Pharisees failed to see that the time for their thirst to be quenched had come, even after Jesus spoke to them in parables. In verse 8 of the same chapter Jesus said “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” making them know that as “He” is now here, we can finally find rest. Christ is the Sabbath, our rest.

Like the woman at the well who had been with six men, growing up in my life I have identified “six” significant desires of which I had sought to depend on “man” to fulfill. A desire for attention, a desire for affection, a desire for fulfillment, a desire for reputation, and an unexplainable emptiness that got me into all sorts of trouble. Thank God for Jesus, our Sabbath whom he has given us his rest.

Hebrews 4 tells us not to harden our hearts when we hear his word, so that we can partake of his rest.

You see God our father is so compassionate towards us, that almost immediately after he chastises us in correction for something we did wrong, he can’t help but pour out his love again on us.

God looks at us when we are in distress and says:

For your Maker is "YOUR HUSBAND"— the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. 6 The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit— a wife who married young, only to be rejected," says your God. 7 "For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. 8 In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you," says the LORD your Redeemer.- Isaiah 54:5-8

Pheeeew!!!!! what....... a.......... consolation........!!!! This particular passage spoke directly to me just as it is probably speaking to you right now, and I was so broken when I discovered that God had been waiting for me all along but I kept moving round in circles, looking for a completeness, a peace of mind, and a rest I could never find on earth. Jesus gave me that rest.

So the Eve in us all is in search of satisfaction.fulfillment, desirous of a husband to rule over us, confort and councel us, and we look for these in all the wrong places, while all the while the answer is right there…..right there by our side. As we come to the knowledge of God and he gives us rest today, let us continue to hold fast to his word so that the fulfillment of our need for satisfaction may be complete.

"So, as the Holy Spirit says:

Today, if you hear his voice, 8do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10 That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.'11So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' " 12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.-Hebrews 3:7-19


At what stage are you in currently, are you still searching to fill that perpetual emptiness in your life, do you feel an insatiable thirst in your spirit for satisfaction but still can’t find it? Jesus is here right now to fill that "gap". God is ready to invest his love in your heart today; he is ready to give you that water that would quench your thirst forever. Jesus said the peace he gives us is not like the one the united nations gives, it is not like the peace the one who settles desputes btw brothers brings, but his peace is that peace that reconciles us with the Father.

Cast your burdens on Jesus; lay them one by one for he cares for you. The bible says the bread of satisfaction is for the Children and we are Gods children, so let us hold fast to him without despair and he would see us through.


Love and peace to whoever reads this.

K.I-Th