“And he must needs go through Samaria.”⁣ John 4:4

⁣But guess what?

Christ did NOT need to go through Samaria!

In fact, the Jews avoided Samaria because the Samaritans were considered such religious and political outcasts.

So why did Christ feel like He needed to go through Samaria?

Because that’s where He met the woman at the well.

It’s where He declared His divinity to her in a moment when she needed to know of His love.

Jesus knows our life situations.

He knows where we are and what we need in each moment.

He felt compelled to be in Samaria at that well, no matter how little sense it made to anyone else.

So what does that mean for you and me?

We can have faith that Christ feels the need to come to each of us in our circumstances and in our troubles.

He wants to come to us, just as we are.

He feels compelled to come to us as we go about our daily routine.

Jesus wants to help us.

And so we can expect Him to be near.

Even in those mundane moments when we seem just to be getting our daily water at the well.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post He is compelled  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

It wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but I did it.

As I did it, I actually started to enjoy having my week completely planned out in advance. I could still totally change things around if I needed, but at least starting with structure was really helpful.

About halfway through the year, I was talking to one of my good coworkers about submitting my lessons plans.

She said, “Oh, I’ve never done that since the first week of school! And Mr. ___ has never said a single thing to me! So there’s no way that I’m doing that extra work.”

I learned that our principal was not “compelling” us to complete his request for lesson plans.

(I’m not necessarily suggesting this as a common leadership tactic, by the way haha.)

But what I learned was that I was staying more organized as a teacher because I was choosing to follow through on his request.

Even after learning there were virtually no consequences for not following through on the assignment to submit lesson plans, I continued to do so because I now saw the value in it.

And I think that’s part of the message in Ch 42 that Alma was teaching Corianton about how God will not compel us to choose righteousness.

We’ve been given commandments and scriptures.

But if we don’t follow through on these requests from our Father, He doesn’t immediately strike us down or call us to the principal’s office.

There doesn’t seem to really be a consequence, because we are not being compelled to do anything.

But really, the consequences are just a lot more natural and nuanced than we might expect.

My coworker wasn’t prepared for the week ahead of time, inviting more chaos into her week.

It didn’t look like there was a consequence, but there was.

And if we don’t do what God has asked, we just naturally don’t get to learn more about our loving Savior and Heavenly Parents.

Which means, in the next life, we won’t be with Them as much, either.

It doesn’t look like there are consequences for not keeping the commandments, but there are.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post An uncompelling principal first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.