Bubbling, Clean and Life-giving...

God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet of destruction to His people.  The people were about to be assaulted from both Babylon and Egypt, and God lists two reasons why He is allowing their overthrow; they had forsaken Him, and had turned to their own devices to meet their needs.

“For My people have committed two evils:  They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of Living Waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”  Jeremiah 2:13

A cistern was a large holding tank that was either dug out of the ground or hewn out of rock.  It collected seepage and rain runoff, often through gutters and pipes.  The water was stagnant and there was often debris floating on the top.  Occasionally animals would stumble into them and drown.  So the water from these cisterns was usually flat and stale tasting at best — at its worst it could be deadly.

Living water was naturally occurring, flowing water.  Streams, rivers and underground streams that spill out of the rock in waterfalls or bubble up out of the ground were all living water.  Living water was extremely important to the Jewish people.  God demanded it for ceremonial cleansing.  He had provided it in the wilderness when the people followed Moses, and He had consoled and protected David at the oasis of En Gedi where the water bursts out of the rock.  They celebrated the Feast of Sukkot that included prayer for rain for the upcoming harvest.  Only God could provide it, just as only God can cleanse.  It was during the Feast of Sukkot that Jesus declared Himself to be the source of living water in John 4:10.

           

God says “I am living water.  Come to me and I will quench your thirst and give you life.”  Instead, we build cisterns. We collect the runoff of real life. We tell God that we can take care of ourselves, thank you, we don’t need Him.  And then we proceed to quench our thirst in ways God never intended, poisoning our souls and leaving ourselves aching for water that will quench our thirst and provide life. We turn to alcohol or we overeat or we turn to any number of dead and dying things to provide life. To make things worse, our cisterns are broken, and couldn’t hold even brackish water.  We are unable in every way to make the life for ourselves that God intends for us.

           

Apart from Him, we can do nothing.

Dear God, help me to see the difference between the life I make for myself and the life You want to give me.   Help me to choose You.