As the weeks of this COVID-19 pandemic have stretched on, my wife and I have taken to trying to get out of the house each day for a walk. In the process, we have also developed a few different paths that we tread.
On one such path, just off of the University campus, there is an old, rusty water tower. The water tower may still be in use, though from its condition I would be surprised. Seeing something that large which was created with a purpose standing in such dilapidation can be alarming. It can also be seen as a warning. If not tended to, things of good use can easily become things of great danger.
All of the prophets of the Old Testament faced similar circumstances. Their nation, Israel had taken something of great value – their special relationship with the almighty God, Yahweh – and had corrupted it, tarnished it. Israel, as a people, had failed to remain faithful in word and deed with the One who had entered into personal and special relationship with them by way of Covenant. A harsh, spiritual warfare was taking place. And God’s people seemed to be on the losing end of that warfare.
I wonder if you might be like me, and find yourself currently in a state of spiritual warfare. One where your emotions and your intellect seem to be at odds and battling with one another.
The prophet Jeremiah once addressed something similar when he quoted these words from God to the people of God (the nation of Israel):
“for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
Can you see God speaking directly to our current circumstances through the words of the prophet Jeremiah? God says that two things have happened – first, God’s people have “forsaken” him. They have walked away from an active, living and participatory relationship with him. That’s what the word “forsake” means… to quit, or leave entirely; to abandon; to desert something. Israel was, unfortunately, rather skilled at walking away from God in favor of other things – it can be seen in just about every chapter of the Old Testament. And I don’t know about you, but MY heart is prone to wander away from the view of Christ’s grace at any given opportunity as well. As the words of the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing say “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love…”.
The second thing that God says his people have done in Jeremiah 2:13 is that they have “hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water”. Cisterns are something which most of us today don’t think much about, simply because we have access to clean water. But for the people of Jeremiah’s day, cisterns could have been their ONLY ability to have drinking water, if a well were not accessible to them.
Imagine this for a moment… you have a cistern which you have built and it is your ONLY opportunity for life-giving water. It is your only opportunity to quench your thirst after a day of hard labor in the sun. You approach your container of water, desperate to drink, only to find it with no water inside.
Disappointment? Yes, but there are other emotions tangled with it. Fear? Yes, that too. Guilt? Certainly, over neglect of close watch for the cistern. But there is yet another feeling … Anger. Anger that you were unable to quench your thirst. Anger that you are the only one to blame for your circumstances. And perhaps anger that you had not paid attention to your cistern.
This is the place God’s people found themselves… facing a problem which ONLY their God, their creator and sustainer, could solve. Yet God’s people ALSO knew that they had walked away from him, and had relied on their own means – creating cisterns – in the hopes that their own ingenuity would sustain them. They had sinned against the very one who would (and did) provide for their needs. They had evidenced a lack of faith in the most holy one. God’s people felt disappointment, fear, anger, and guilt. There was shame that they had not done the right thing. And ultimately, God’s people knew they would face God’s wrath for their sinful behavior because they had not repented and sought God’s wisdom and counsel.
Intellectually, all of us know that we need our God. We know that nothing we can do, say, or create will substitute for seeking relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And yet, we put our trust in others and in other creations (idols) instead of doing that which faith calls us to. To use the illustration from the beginning of this devotional… we have created a water tower instead of praying to the Lord for the rain which brings the water to fill the water tower.
Where are the water towers in your life – the things that you are relying on, built of your own creation, which keep you from actual trust in God’s provisions… actual faith in God himself? Where have you hewed out a cistern to meet your own needs instead of asking the Lord for his equipping in his own providential way? Let me ask an even more provoking question… how might your church be acting as a broken cistern for you?
This COVID-19 epidemic has forced our Centennial community to develop new ways of doing “normal”. We long to be together and face-to-face in fellowship. We long to sing the hymns and Psalter songs together instead of singing them with only our families in our living rooms. We long to give and receive handshakes and hugs from fellow believers at Centennial. Yet, we find ourselves forced apart. We find ourselves in a God-ordained moment where only HE can sustain us. Only HE can meet our spiritual, emotional, and yes, even physical needs.
If you find yourself provoked in any way by any of the thoughts or questions in this devotional, I urge us all (myself certainly included) to fall on our knees and seek God’s face. Ask of the Holy Spirit that he might speak to you through God’s Word. Ask of Christ that the Spirit of God might provide you with wisdom to navigate your feelings and understand his revealed truth.
It is my prayer that as the Session of Centennial begins to think towards a future of the body of Christ being together again in worship, that we as the people of Centennial might first look for our own broken cisterns. May God grant us the wisdom and understanding to recognize any areas which outwardly appear beneficial, but in reality are ways that we have moved apart from Christ and are a danger to our spiritual well-being.
Andy