Broken Cisterns

          A long, long time ago when I was on my feet I once went on a backpacking trip through the Rawah wilderness of northern Colorado - even though it was eons ago when I was a teenager, I remember that trip as though it were yesterday.  That burning, aching feeling in the muscles of my legs as we hiked up steep mountains, the feel of the hot, high mountain sun on my face, and I will never forget dipping my canteen into the Cache de Poudre River after a long, tiring morning on the trail. 

            It's not that I needed to fill my canteen - it was, in fact, already filled.  But after hours in the hot sun, the water was warm, a little stale, and frankly it tasted like metal.  Why drink that when there was this beautiful fresh, clear, rushing mountain river of crystal ice-cold water?  No way was I going to drink from the old stuff in my canteen.  When you've got the real thing, why waste your thirst on something second (or even third-best) that tastes bad? 

            I thought of that morning by the Cache de Poudre River when I recently read a very special verse in the book of Jeremiah.  God says in Jeremiah 2:13, "My people have committed two sins:  They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." 

            Well, my little canteen, metallic and warm as it was, you could definitely say it would hold water, but I think you get the point.  So many of us settle for second-best or even third-best things in this world; things that really cannot and do not satisfy.  And here's the jarring thing:  God says that is a sin.  It is an offense to Him when we Christians know full well that Jesus is the clear, fresh and satisfying Living Water... and yet, even knowing that, we turn to the things of this world believing earthly pleasures truly can and do refresh and satisfy.  Where are our heads?  Because when we choose earthly things over godly things, it's like, well... it's like licking the inside of a hot, empty canteen that leaks, saying, "Oh, yes, oh, this tastes so good, more, more... oh, this is great, this is so refreshing!"  Like, hello!  C'mon, get real!

            But, friend, I think you have to admit we do it all the time.  Jesus really is the Spring of Living Water and when we drink of Him, out of us flow rivers of living water.  And the offense against God comes when we know that - when we really know that Jesus satisfies - and yet still we dig in the sand and grope around for cisterns... cisterns that are broken... cisterns that only best hold stagnant, stale, canteen-tasting warm, brackish water.  That's where the offense against God comes in.  Because basically we're telling God that Jesus doesn't really satisfy.  He's not enough.  He doesn't refresh, so I want to lick the inside of the stale canteen. 

            Oh, come on, friend, why waste your time on the pleasures and offerings of this broken world when you've got the real thing - the real person - the one and only one who can satisfy your thirst.  That's what happens when you drink long and cool of the refreshing grace of the Lord Jesus.  They don't call Him the Living Water for nothing. 

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