Broken Cisterns
Where do you go to de-stress?
Maybe you exercise, eat, watch TV, play games, call a friend, or listen to music. At the end of the activity, do you feel refreshed? Do you feel re-energised for the rest of the day/week?
I don’t know about you, but I often find myself feeling drained rather than rested in my efforts to unwind. It isn’t until I come to God and His principles of re-creation that I find satiation for my thirsty soul and weary body.
But why is that so hard to do, despite our knowledge of its worth?
Jeremiah records the heartbroken lament of a God abandoned by His people. One particular imagery really hit home for me:
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13, NIV).
Broken Cisterns. Hand-made containers that are supposed to retain water but are leaking. Drip. Drip. Drip.
A leaky faucet can drive one crazy. The so-called Chinese water torture works just one drip at a time.
Perhaps it is time to come to the Spring of Living Water and spend a quiet, reflective time counting our blessings…. or bursting into song and praise, making joyful noise…. or sharing the Word with others.
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live….
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”
Isaiah 55
I’m tired of broken cisterns. I long for wholeness that only comes from the Master Potter.
by: Jinha Kim
"But those who drink 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." John 4:14
I’ve been thinking much about this idea last weeks, and I was just re-reading how this metaphor of water (John 4) changed Hudson Taylor’s religious experience.