“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
You might be wondering, What’s a cistern? A cistern is a holding tank for water that is dug into the ground. The water inside a cistern is still, unmoving. In juxtaposition to “living water,” this water is dead.
A cistern is intended to be leakproof. But what happens when the lining cracks or the internal structure breaks? It can no longer hold water. Adding more water to a broken cistern is futile. Expecting a broken cistern to provide life-giving water is pointless.
It would be unthinkable for a person to walk past a bubbling artesian spring of clean water and instead choose to exert tremendous energy digging and filling a cistern in order to draw from the stagnant water source. It just wouldn’t make sense. Yet this is exactly what the people of Israel had done in their spiritual lives.
This is exactly what we often do in our own lives. And it grieves the heart of God.
“They have forsaken me.” Can you hear the anguish and disappointment in those words? Being refused and abandoned by His chosen people brought great pain to God’s heart. He feels the same way when we turn away from Him today.
We may not worship statues made of gold or call on the name of foreign gods like the people in Jeremiah’s time, but have you ever put your trust in something or someone other than Jesus? Think about it.
Where do you go for purpose, significance, and security? Where do you turn when you’re thirsty for truth and yearning for peace?
As I examine my own heart before the Lord, I have to admit that at times I’m not so unlike the Israelites. I can forget all that God has done to rescue me from bondage, forgive my sins, and invite me into a relationship of love and freedom with Him. I can slip into the trap of believing that other water sources, other life sources, are just as good and satisfying as God.
Some of my cisterns look like Instagram scrolling and seeking satisfaction from the stale water of likes and comments. I’ve dug cisterns of relationships and work projects — returning again and again to something that has value but was never intended to be an endless source of nourishment and fulfillment.
Maybe you’ve dragged your thirsty soul to the cisterns of online shopping or too many glasses of wine. Maybe you’ve neglected the living spring of God for the broken wells of politics, self-help books, the latest fad diet, or your bank account balance.
When you’re scared and confused, do you rush to God and the living spring of His Word for wisdom and truth, or are you quick to turn on the news or ask a friend’s advice? When you’re lonely and longing to feel loved, do you ask the Spirit of our living God to surround you and minister to you, or do you reach for that tub of ice cream or the arms of someone who isn’t your husband? When you’re anxious and hurting, do you run to the Living Water, the Prince of Peace in prayer, or do you rush to Facebook, Amazon, or a romance novel?
Friends, it’s time to recognize the cisterns we’ve dug. It’s time to confess that we’ve habitually visited these leaky, polluted cisterns.
It’s time to choose living water.
By Becky Keife from Create in Me a Heart of Peace
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Such powerful words that speak to me. I don’t even realize all the times I don’t turn to God first. If I am honest, I think I turn to friends first instead of praying on my situation.
This scripture has “stuck out” to me time and time again. Thank you for illustrating it so beautifully, Becky. (and I so appreciate all the examples you gave of cisterns. None of us are excluded from the temptation of choosing the stale over the living, are we?)
Glory to God and His Living Water that quenches our every thirst!
Gratefully,
Nikki S. White
Thank you for this timely devotion. I have been struggling with a situation/decision the past couple of days and woke up to the realization this morning that I have been turning to several broken cisterns to try to find the answer. I have done all the research I can, anything else is trying to force the solution in the direction I am feeling pressured by others. I need to realize that solution might not be the right one for me at this time and let things play out with God’s plan.
Thank you, Becky, for these powerful soul searching words. My heart and spirit aches over the “broken cisterns” that I have gone to over the years, cisterns that that have dried up. Your words and this scripture have gone behind some of these hidden places in my heart and soul.
May God’s blessing be upon you this day.
I choose living water!
Really thought provoking words. I think sadly we can exhibit the bad cisterns without even realizing from time to time. Hopefully we can all learn to choose living water first and connect with Him deeper.