Thursday, November 29, 2018

Broken Cisterns or The Spring



Caveat: This is something I’m in the process of learning….I don’t really know yet what it looks like to practice applying it! So I write this not because I have all the answers, but because I’m on the journey of discovery.

Recently, I had a heart-to-heart talk with one of my sister-friends. As I was prayer-journaling for her afterwards, part of a verse about broken cisterns came to mind…and I saw how it possibly related to her situation, but how it definitely related to mine.

I didn’t look the verse up to read the whole thing right away. I should have!!!!

Instead, I started writing about the process of repairing a leaking cistern—something I experienced at my house in Kasana, Uganda earlier this year. How the muck from years of use has to be cleaned out. How pick axes have to hammer away at the old cement coating for hours and hours, causing brokenness before the resurfacing can be done. How even after the repair work is finished, the cement has to cure for a couple days before the pipes can be reconnected for the cistern to start refilling. And how God has to send the rain.

I thought it was a great analogy that I wanted to share with all of you.

But then, the next morning when insomnia awakened me before dawn, I pulled my Bible off the shelf and opened to the actual passage. I read the whole chapter, but one verse is where I focused:
“For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13

The problem is TWO-fold. It’s not just that the people are trying to rely on broken cisterns that can’t hold water. It is ALSO that they forsook God’s spring as the source that they SHOULD be relying on!!!

And so the real call here isn’t to put in the work and effort to repair the broken cistern, like I had thought it was the night before.

The call is to return to HIM!!! See Jeremiah 3:1b:
“‘But you have played the harlot with many lovers;
Yet return to Me,’ says the Lord.”
As I wrote in my quiet time journal, “The call is to leave behind the cistern method [completely] and tap into a spring!!!”

Paraclete reminded me of a couple passages from John where Jesus talked about a similar idea.

John 4:10 & 14 for one, of course! Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that He could give her living water, springing up into everlasting life.

And then John 7:37-39: The call for thirsty people to come to Jesus, that He would make their hearts flow with rivers of living water. Not the often nasty water from cisterns that isn’t safe to drink or cook with, because frogs and snakes and who knows what else have lived and died in it.

As I wrote, “The new covenant ain’t about repairing our broken cisterns!!! It’s about changing our water source completely. And John’s commentary on Jesus’ declaration is important: vs. 39—the promised river of living water is the Spirit of God—it’s a Person! Who indwells us and reminds and teaches us!!!”

That was all several days ago. What brought it back to mind and spurred me on to blog about it was last night at the church accountability group I’m part of. I can’t share about what was shared in the group, for confidentiality reasons. But as I was praying in the car on the drive home, Paraclete brought this concept back to mind.

Any time I am looking to counseling or therapy or a book or medication or anything else physically external to fix me, I’m trying to resurface my broken cistern and missing the real point.

That’s been a growing realization ever since I joined this group back in September. I’m not saying that ANY of those things I listed above are categorically bad. I am taking part in all of them, as I seek continued mental health/healing. BUT! If my faith is in any one of those things, or even in all of them collectively, that is misplaced faith.

I believe that every one of those things can be powerful and needed tools, like tools for gold working or surgical instruments. But it is GOD who is the great Craftsman/Surgeon—it is HE who must be the force behind doing the refining/healing work. And I must actively choose to surrender to Him and to yield myself to the process—and yet also to take part and be involved in it. God must do the work, but I must choose to practice applying what I’m learning.

Praying in the car last night, I just thanked Jesus for His amazing patience with me. Because I am such a slow learner!

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure where relationships with other believers falls. I guess that it IS still a “mere” tool—but I think it is part of a trifecta of the most powerful tools: Bible reading/study/meditation, intentional/conversational prayer, and Spirit-led conversations with believers.

Because on Saturday, when I had spent the whole morning home alone, spiraling down into a depressed state faster than a coin in the final stage of a coin tornado, it wasn’t prayer or Bible reading that pulled me out of it. {I was trying to try those things, and they weren’t stopping the mental circles of self-talk.} It was my host mom coming home, seeing my distress, grabbing me in a hug, and praying for me. It was Lahash’s director and his wife coming over and spending a couple hours listening to me share my struggle and praying for me. It was talking to my accountability partner on the phone, sharing with her and listening to her share with me. It was talking to my parents, also on the phone, and sharing with them too.

Well….I didn’t know my blog post about cisterns vs. The Spring was going to include those last two paragraphs too! But there they are :)

And honestly I’m out of words now. Except for this: Please join me in praying for myself—and maybe for yourself too—that God will teach me how to put this idea of changing the water source I rely on into practice. And that I will do that hard work!!! Because it’s ME, making those moment-by-moment decisions, that can change my life. OF COURSE, I cannot do that in my own strength. It has to be Paraclete motivating and enabling me—just as John said in 7:39, it is HE (the Spirit) who is the river of living water!

So here’s to practicing living out the tension/balance of Philippians 2:12-13:
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

May it ever be true of us.

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