cracked cisterns
March 30, 2010 | Faith: Knowing Christ
I want to be on Survivor, but I’m not sure I would make it. It’s the water thing. One-hundred plus weather. Harsh elements. Cracked dry lips. Brutal challenges.
If I play volleyball on a hot day my internal thermometer stokes up. My face turns beet red. My limbs start to feel like jelly. I don’t sweat like normal people. So, I can only imagine about 4 p.m. on my first day on Survivor, running in the challenge, landing belly up with a heat stroke, croaking the word “water. . .”.
I think that maybe our faith life looks a little like this, too. I’m reading in Jeremiah this morning, following the story of Jeremiah who has to take a tough message to an entire nation. This verse leaped out at me:
For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me–the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all. (Jeremiah 2:13 NLB)
I hear the heart of grief as God speaks to Jeremiah. He sees his people turning to worthless idols and says, “The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay.” (Verse 12)
Jeremiah has to stand before the people, holding a wooden idol in one hand and pointing to the heavens with the other. “Why do you choose such meaningless things when the God of the Heavens has loved you, still loves you, has rescued you. Why do you only turn to him in times of crisis? Why do you abandon Him?”
I could take offense at this. Isn’t our faith based on grace? Aren’t we past all this guilt?
But I don’t see guilt in this instance. I imagine God seeing from his vantage point: a futile cycle of running after idols and when they prove to be empty, turning to the source of life once again. Then abandonment as soon as their thirst is filled.
I pray that I don’t do this, even as I admit that I have at times. Going after all the things that claim my time, investing my life, my energy, my heart into worthless and meaningless endeavors, and turning to God when I’m so thirsty I can’t see straight.
I need water daily. I need it to think. I need it to live healthy. I need it to thrive.
Spiritually I can’t just keep on going, making [put anything you want in here] my idol, trying to fill my life by drinking out of cracked cisterns.
I’m grateful when God stops me to point out my obvious thirst, but I also want to be smart enough to know that I can’t make it without it, and run to Him first.
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Yes, LORD, amen!
March 30th, 2010 at 4:14 pmI am laying here in tears realizing just how many times I personally have turned to those broken cisterns. Thanks for the reminder that I have The Living Water to fill me.
March 30th, 2010 at 11:42 pmSuz, As I was reading through this, I was reminded of Hosea 13:6 “When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.” I can look back at so many times throughout my life and see the times I became “full” and went away forgetting to really feast on Him & His Word. I believe God wants to give us a life of abundance that is over-flowing of His Spirit — not just full. So many times, I take or “drink” of things that leave me still thirsty and unfortunately, many they are things that are not of Him. (Too much TV, too much facebook etc…) I have to quit going to the well to quench my thirst and go the source of life Himself. I want to drink of the water that promises we will “never thirst again”.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:21 amSuzanne,
March 31st, 2010 at 12:42 pmWow, wow, wow! What I’m learning to love more and more is the simplicity of God’s message to us…thinking of how He refers to us as trees planted by the water so that we bear good fruit; He is the Living Water, Bread of Life; and on and on. The core is simply that He is our sustanence and all we need. These are such great reminders and when you refer to OT lens and what was going on in that time, it just brings it home even more that we are prone to leaving the banqueting table, not realizing that we are to stay. I’ve heard it said by my pastor that we shouldn’t want to leave because we should never be full or satisfied; on the contrary, we should always be hungry for Him. Thanks for this!