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.

The Love Circle

The first part of this is something I initially journaled during my commute to work a couple weeks ago. The latter part fell into place this morning during my extended reflective time with God.

“Esther, let Me love you.”

Those words from our Triune God have been re-echoing again and again in my mind since my birthday evening. And Paraclete {my favorite name for the Holy Spirit} has been helping me realize that, in a way, I don’t even know how to receive His unconditional love.

So it’s been something I have been praying/meditating about some. This morning it came back to mind again as I was in my prayer closet, trying not to fixate on a request I had read that morning via email. Paraclete took me back, once again, to Jesus’ Valedictory Address {John 13-17} and 1 John.

John 15:9-10 came to mind:

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My life, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

I found myself wishing very much that Jesus hadn’t put that conditional statement in there!!! Because that’s what ends up becoming a trap to me, again & again & again—trying to feel like I have earned or deserve God’s love based on what I DO. It so easily becomes a point of pride and/or legalism. But there’s another critically important part of that verse! “Just as….”

Jesus’ example and His obedience of the Father are to be our model! And He doesn’t obey out of fear or because He is trying to earn God’s love. Jesus obeys because He is in perfect relationship with the Father and because of all the concepts we read about in Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service! {The first book we read here as part of the Servant Teams curriculum – somewhat dense, but really good with lots of practical application too!}

It’s like the heptapod language—all an interwoven circle.*

So Jesus obeys the Father because He loves Him and because They are eternally in perfect relationship {with Paraclete too, of course!!}. So love should be the driving force of our obedience, not fear & torment (1 John 4:18). But why do we love God? The very next verse tells us—because He first loved us (4:19)! And also 4:10—He showed His love for us by sending Jesus to be our propitiation (the conciliation, the act of making God favorably inclined, appeasing Him).

Abba’s love came to me through the death and sacrifice of Jesus. In my prayer closet this morning, Paraclete showed me that when I’m trying to earn/prove myself worthy of God’s love—by serving, going overseas, etc. etc.—I am acting like Jesus’ love & sacrifice were not sufficient…I am minimalizing the greatest act in all of history and acting like my filthy rags of righteous deeds (Isaiah 64:6) are better.

Oh Abba, forgive me for that egregious misconstrued view!!!

So we abide in God’s love by keeping His commandments out of a heart of love for Him, because He first loved us and reconciled us to Himself. See how it’s like a heptapod* circle??!!! Love is the goal, the means, and the catalyst!

And it’s all about You, Abba—it’s not about me or anything I could ever do.

Abba, I don’t know how to practice and apply this! But I know it is foundational and critically important—I know it’s a game changer if this lesson could sink deep into my heart and become my driving force! Again in my prayer closet, Paraclete reminded me that I can’t give what I haven’t received….

{And at that point I arrived at my destination!}

About a month ago, I joined a small accountability group at a local church here. We are going through a book called The Genesis Process together. It’s focused on helping people deal with the root causes behind addictions or other self-destructive coping behaviors. It keeps on bringing me back to this idea:

And then this morning I started working on the fourth process, and this is how it began:

I definitely learned this lesson the hard way in August 2016. That month, two men who were serving as leaders in both the organization and the church each had to resign because of moral shortcomings. The first one was an especially hard blow to me, as I had been welcomed into his home many times by him and his wife.

I remember crying in the staff meeting when his resignation was announced. And then I went home and sat on the floor of my room and sobbed for probably around 10 minutes. Grieving the brokenness of sin. Grieving the pain I was sure his wife was going through. Grieving my own hurt too. Fighting feelings of a guilt too complex to explain without sharing details of other peoples’ stories.

That day I was so tempted to make a vow of sorts—a vow never again to get so close to another family that I would open myself up to that kind of pain. A vow never to trust and admire someone as I had allowed myself to do with him—because such Christian familial love had wounded me deeply.

I thank God that I stopped myself from making that decision. I knew it was the wrong decision—a decision that would let the enemy win. And so I continued to grow in relationship with many other sisters and couples. But that wound still aches when I think of it. I think I allowed that and other things which began developing around the same time to plant a seed of hopelessness in my heart. I did my best to process and forgive….but somehow I think I closed off a little cupboard of bitterness inside my soul.

Fast forward back to today. Later in the morning, as I was outside processing through some other stuff, my mind made its way back to what I had read in The Genesis Process.

I wrote:

Love & wounding—both are always two-way streets. Except for with God. He is the only One who loves perfectly and never wounds unjustly—with the one, all-important exception of Jesus on the cross.

In a strange, miraculous way that only God could plan, that moment in human history was both the most unjust (towards Jesus, who had done nothing wrong), and yet also the most merciful & gracious & loving towards us—we who had broken all the relationships, who have done all the wounding, who deserve nothing but eternal judgment and yet receive nothing but unconditional love. Such beauty & brokenness at the same time!!!

Now a few hours later, those words bring to mind Hebrews 12:1-3:

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”

And so I choose to continue opening myself up to love and, yes, even to the risk of human woundedness, because in so doing I am following in the footsteps of the most truly Human person who ever lived—our Savior, Jesus Christ. May His love in and through me glorify and magnify HIS beauty!

*To fully understand this analogy, you have to watch Arrival – it’s an alien film, but I found it to have deep theological undertones looking at it from a Biblical worldview! But to semi-explain the circle bit: Basically in that film, the aliens communicate through a written language made up of circles, with each circle being a phrase/sentence with multiple words...or something like that! See below for an example. The circle is formed by smoke from the heptapod's feet, and so the language is written with foreknowledge of the phrase/sentence as a whole.

Vulnerability, not Pretense

The Church is NOT a good works club, it IS a fellowship of grace! It’s NOT about what we do—period! All we have to do is to receive, openly & vulnerably; to be loved by Jesus. Works-based Christianity does NOT create sustainable faith!

The above paraphrase was the key point of the sermon I heard this morning—a sermon so good I sat through it twice! (I’m attending church with my hostess for the next several months, at Oak Hills Presbyterian Church here on the outskirts of Portland.)

Currently, the church is going through a sermon series on Acts, and this morning’s passage was about 4:32-5:11—the story of the early Church’s lifestyle of radical giving and the death of Ananias and Saphira. Jeremy (the pastor here) made the case that, at root, this passage is not really about money or giving. It’s about a deeper lifestyle choice: Pretense or Vulnerability.

The generous people, including Barnabas, showed their vulnerability by giving up their earthly security for the sake of others – demonstrating that the resurrection of Christ (4:33) had set them free from the self-protective hoarding of resources. The beneficiaries of this generosity also had to practice vulnerability, admitting to their church family that they were facing needs that they couldn’t meet on their own.

The power of Christ created a culture of radical openness and vulnerability for those who found their identity in HIM, rather than in trying to project a false image of themselves to others. Ananias and Saphira, however, made a show of spiritual heroism that was a lie – and for that they were severely punished….by death!

Jeremy talked about the word hypocrite, which comes from the Greek word for actor. In Greek culture, stage actors would wear masks to show their emotions—happy for a joyful scene, sad for a tragic scene, etc. With the masks, they projected what the scene required, while hiding what was really going on underneath.

He concluded his sermon, “the only way to receive grace is by being open and broken, trusting in God’s grace and being real with one another.”

This sermon really struck a chord with me where I am at spiritually right now. I have so very much to be thankful for, so very much to praise God for. But this year, and the past several years before, have each been the successively hardest year of my life. And so I want to share more about that here than I have so far. Not to illicit pity. Definitely not to brag on myself (quite the contrary!). But to testify of God’s Grace.

God has brought the above song to my mind multiple times in the past few months. This is who I want to be. Real and raw, yes, but for the purpose of allowing God to shine His Glory through my brokenness.

As those close to me know, most of this year has been an intense spiritual battle for me. In January I returned to my second home in Uganda, excited for another term…though also with reservations. Before I could even get back into my job at the office, I was hit simultaneously with insomnia, depression, and worse.

For the next six plus months, many days it was a struggle just to get out of bed. It felt like I was constantly fighting a losing battle with hopelessness. After two months with little maintainable progress, I resigned from my position in Uganda, said goodbye to the people who had become my family there, and returned home to Dallas. I’ve become ok over these past months with naming depression as one of my struggles. There were also other struggles I’m still not comfortable naming this publicly.....shame can be a strong enemy. [No physical or emotional harm was maliciously done to me.]

Suffice it to say, the fact that I am currently walking in relationship with God is in itself a testimony to God’s abundant Grace, lavish Love, and constant Pursuit towards me. He did this using so many amazing people both in Uganda, Dallas, and other places who didn’t give up on me…who kept loving me, praying for me, speaking truth to me, and fighting (spiritually) on my behalf. If I started naming names I couldn’t quit…so I won’t start, except to say that my parents are at the top of the list. :)

The fact that a month and a half ago I moved half way across the country, to a place where I personally knew no one; that I am now in an intense program of learning and serving, and that I am {mostly**} flourishing here—that is an unimaginable miracle of Christ’s mercy and transforming power.

When people hear about my life since graduation from college in May of 2013—most of that time spent rooted in the red soil of East Africa—they can quickly and easily tend to put me on a pedestal. I’m here to tell you today, I am NO super hero. I am not applying that title to myself—one well-meaning person has told me that missionaries, me inclusive, are. On the contrary, I am just as flawed and broken as anyone else….if not more so (in the spirit of Paul, expressed in 1 Tim. 1:15). Any good that has come of my life is all God’s Grace.

Yesterday morning, I spent more than three hours journaling…processing…praying…grieving. My Good Shepherd has led me on a road that has been full of both the very good and the very hard in these past five years, since I first knocked on the door labelled “Uganda.” But He has been with me every single step of the way, both on the sunny mountaintops and in the darkest of valleys.

This year’s breakdown didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s seeds were sown from my personality and character flaws…from circumstances and situations which affected me…from my failure to name what I needed and ask for help (at least not until it was too late, humanly speaking)…from organizational and personnel challenges. The pressure really started building in August of 2016…so it was a long time coming.

So that’s my practice at being open and vulnerable. And maybe very few people will take the time to read this. But I process best by writing, and so hopefully composing this blog post will better free my tongue in personal dialogue. Please feel free to ask me questions. Christ’s healing of my heart is finally bringing me to a place of being more willing to speak of these things. But these previous paragraphs are not the whole story.

Here is the “My Story” version:

Hope that wouldn't let go: My Savior never lost a grip on the wheel of my life, even when it looked to me like it was chaotically spinning out of control. And HE has restored my hope in Him, in His time and way.

Love that never gave up: These past three weeks, my Lover has been calling my heart to be willing to receive from Him and from others. Not that I should try to earn or deserve anything, simply to receive…and THEN to give.

Life, but it wasn't mine: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

The grace that is greater than all my sin: If I spoke of God’s Grace—in loving me and redeeming me from sin—for every hour of the rest of my life, I wouldn’t have time to tell it all.

When justice was served: But not to me; to the perfect, sinless Son of God. There are times I want to call “FOUL!” on my life, times I say I wish there had been justice in a given situation. But that’s only because I fail to remember what true justice really demands.

Where mercy wins: Every single day, every breath of my life, is as a result of the mercy of Christ.

The kindness of Jesus that draws me in: The opposite of what I in myself deserve…but He showers His kindness instead.

Victory over the enemy: The victory has already been won!! It’s not my battle to fight—it’s a gift the Christ already waged the war for, that I am simply to allow HIM to apply to and live out in my life.

Freedom that was won for me: Freedom from fear. Freedom from failure. Freedom to be known and to know. To be loved and to love. To be served and to serve. Freedom as a gift from Him, applied by Him, in and through this weak vessel.

Life overcome the grave: Our Savior is RISEN!!! And that resurrection power is at work in each and every one of His children!

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long.

One more thing that is finally getting through my thick skull: There WILL be more challenges in my future. More twists & turns in the road. More apparently deep, dark valleys. Maybe even tomorrow. But, Lord help me, when those times come I want to turn more quickly to Your Truth. To root my confidence deeply in You, not in my comfort or things going my way. To say with Mary, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to Your word” (Luke 1:38).

Please join me in praying that for me and, if you dare, maybe for yourself as well.

**Three weeks ago, I heard I had to leave my initial/temporary housing by the end of September. And that I couldn’t move into the house down the street—that I was sure was ideal—because of a logistical detail. My emotions and insecurities proceeded to throw an internal hissy fit. A night of zero sleep followed, and for several days the fear and despair and hopelessness came rolling back over me.

I’m so thankful to our team leaders and my team mates for supporting me through that. And I can now say I’m thankful it happened, because God used it as a catalyst to push me out of the comfortable coasting (from two months of almost all great days) and back onto the road of proactive, intentional healing. Also, in a stroke of divine irony, the new home I moved to, where I initially didn’t want to be, has been an amazing fit and a real gift. So I was fighting God, when of course He knew better all along!!

Confidence

Confidence.

This is a word that has been coming to my mind a lot the past week or so.

Usually, thinking about it makes me think of that song from Sound of Music. You know, the one where a nervous Maria is coming to the Von Trapp family home for the first time. “I have confidence in confidence alone; Besides which you see, I have confidence in me!”

But there’s a pretty big problem with that song. And I have been experiencing it a lot this year. If my confidence is in myself, I set myself up for trouble.

As Paul said in Philippians 3:3-4, we should have no confidence in the flesh, even if humanly speaking we have lots of good reasons to.

This morning I did a brief study about what the Bible says about confidence. And it was both encouraging and convicting! These passages point to having confidence in Christ and in His work in us, not in ourselves.

Here are the passages that my study brought to light. I hope they encourage you as they do me!

Psalm 118:8 – “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”—including myself!

1 John 3:21 – Our confidence is toward God, not toward ourselves.

Proverbs 3:25-26 – “Do not be afraid of sudden terror, nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes; [when, not if!] For the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught.”

Proverbs 14:16, 26 – The fool is self-confident, but strong confidence is in the fear of the Lord, a place of refuge to His children.

2 Corinthians 5:5-9 – Our confidence is not in this physical life, but in our spiritual future with Christ. Our aim is to please HIM!

1 John 2:28 – Abiding in Christ gives us confidence!

Hebrews 10:32-39 – Don’t allow suffering and hardship to make you cast away your confidence! Don’t draw back, but continue believing unto salvation!

Ephesians 3:11-13 – Our boldness and confidence come through faith in Christ!! And that enables us to not lose heart in tribulations.

Philippians 1:6 – Be confident in the work that HE is doing in you! It is a good work, one that continues up to His completion.

Hebrews 3:6, 14 – We are called to hold fast our confidence to the end!

2 Thessalonians 3:3-4 – The Lord is faithful to establish and guard us! And so our confidence is in Him.

Psalm 27:1, 3 – “The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?....In this I will be confident”!

1 John 5:14 – We can have confidence that God hears us when we ask according to His will.

And so I’m asking Him to renew my confidence in Him. That I would be steadfast and certain, not in my own talents or abilities—but in His faithfulness and strength. Humbly abiding in Him, not relying in myself. Because “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15).

Being IN CHRIST

This is something that God has been bringing me back around to the past several months….and I am finally sitting down to flesh it out and share it!

It started when the Holy Spirit brought 2 Cor. 5:17 to my mind:

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.”

At first I didn’t really think about the conditional that starts out the verse…“IF anyone is IN CHRIST.” But when I noticed it I realized that is the crux! I can’t make myself be renewed or transformed! That is what the Holy Spirit does in me as I rest in and yield to Him!

As I was spiritually chewing on that, the first verse that came to mind was Phil. 3:9—

“and be found IN HIM, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith IN CHRIST, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

The verse before that gives the context:

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

All my achievements, all my striving, all my idols—I am to count them all as loss & rubbish, so that I may gain Christ and be found IN HIM!

So often I fail at that. But the verse that brought this whole idea back to my mind this morning speaks to that!

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are IN CHRIST JESUS, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:1)

The following three verses speak to the freedom from the law of sin & death that the Spirit of life IN CHRIST JESUS brings us. This is because Jesus already fulfilled the righteous requirement in us!

So how do we practice being IN CHRIST? My mind immediately jumped to John 15!

Verse four tells us that we can only bear fruit when we are abiding IN CHRIST! And how do we abide in Him? By keeping His commandments (vs. 10). What commandments? Loving one another (vs. 12)!

So love of one another is central to abiding IN CHRIST, which is where freedom is found! But I cannot rightly love others in my own strength…it requires practicing humility, looking out for the interests of others (Phil. 2:4). The next verses command us to have the same mind as was IN CHRIST JESUS: making Himself nothing to serve others. But again, there is no way that I can continually do that in my own strength!!!

The Holy Spirit next took me to Ephesians, where Paul frequently talks about what is positionally true of us IN CHRIST.

• 1:3 We are blessed with every spiritual blessing
• 1:4 We are chosen to be holy and blameless before Him in love.
• 1:6 We are made accepted IN THE BELOVED
• 1:7 We are redeemed and forgiven through His blood, according to the riches of His grace!
• 1:11-12 We obtain an inheritance, one of praising and glorifying Him!
• 1:13-14 Trusting and believing IN HIM seals us with the Holy Spirit, the guarantee of our inheritance
• 1:19-20 IN CHRIST’s resurrection, God works His mighty power…power that is now directed toward us!
• 2:6 We are raised and seated in the heavenly places
• 2:7 We are shown the exceeding riches of His grace and kindness
• 2:10 We are created for good works prepared beforehand
• 2:13 By His blood, we who were far off have been brought near!
• 2:18 through Him (and His finished work), we have access to the Father by the Spirit
• 3:12 We have boldness and access with confidence through faith IN HIM

These are beautiful, precious promises that I want to cling tightly to…especially the next time life throws me a curve ball!

One more passage to finish off with:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us IN CHRIST JESUS before time began…” (2 Tim. 1:7-9)

Please pray for me in the coming weeks and months, that I would be submitted to Christ, allowing Him to live His life in and through me!!