Thirsty?

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. Jeremiah 2:13

As a child, my dad lived in poverty during the worst environmental disaster yet known in the United States. They lived in a farming community during a severe drought and famine in Oklahoma. The family's water supply ran off the roof of their shack during rare rain showers and was stored in a cistern. When they needed a drink, they would take a dipper, scoop up water from the bottom of the cistern, and pull it out.  Often a snake or a frog would hitch a ride out of the cistern along with the warm, sediment filled water. 

They drank from that cistern because there was no choice. It was the only source of water.  

Imagine yourself standing thirsty in that barren landscape. You are standing in the searing sun leaning over the cistern, with your hand on the dipper. Now imagine that behind you is a fountain overflowing with refrigerated, purified, spring water sparkling in the sun. Do you still want a gritty, froggy cistern drink?  

The scene changes.
Now you are Eve loitering in the garden of Eden.

The crafty serpent diverts your attention away from the vast array of pleasant delights available to you. You could take pleasant stroll through the orchard with peach juice dripping down your chin. But, you don't. You walk over to the one tree God has denied you, and sit down its shade, convinced that God is not totally good because he is keeping something from you. You no longer remember the delightful walks with God and Adam in the cool of the day. You no longer remember all the other good gifts that fill your days. You obsess over the thing God has not given you. You don't even need to taste the forbidden fruit to be lost.  The moment you accept the idea that there is something better than being with God, you are dead meat. (I am indebted to Mimi Wilson and Shelly Cook Volkhardt's book Trusting in His Goodness for starting this train of thought.)

We walk past sparkling fountains to drink from filthy cisterns all the time. We constantly look for the "good" thing that will quench our thirst. We sit down under the forbidden tree and dwell on finding Mr. Right, or fixing Mr. Wrong, having the money to visit that beach, or replace that broken old thing, finding the cure and being healthy again, or finding the magic pill that will force the kid to make good choices. The thing we want may be genuinely good, it probably is. But that is not the point. All that crafty serpent has to do is consciously, or preferably unconsciously, convince us that God is not totally good because he is withholding something we need. As soon as we focus on what we do not have instead of on the simple fact that "Jesus loves me, this I know", we are lost.

This is where I think Satan's craftiness reaches a masterful level. He twists the message of Christianity, convincing us that religion is a way of getting that forbidden fruit. The lie is preached in pulpets, written in books, and assumed to be from God. Here is the way it goes: 

• Jesus is your ticket to Heaven.
• Once you accept Jesus, the Bible gives you a set of principles to live by.
• Live by those principles. 
• Pray hard, live right, and God will eventually bless you, make your life work, and (hopefully) give you that good thing you thirst for.

Sound familiar? It does to me too. Like any good lie, there are bits of truth in it. . There is a part of me that really wishes that familiar message was the whole truth. But that is not God's way, that is the cistern, not the fountain.  I am not saying that we shouldn't pray and ask God to meet our needs. Of course we should. But if we put our emphasis on keeping the code so that God will give us the good thing we want, we have believed a lie.

Jesus's death and resurrection offers us much more than just a ticket to heaven when we die. Through him God invites us to once again walk with him in the cool of the day.  That is the true refreshment our thirsty souls long for. When he denies us access to something we deeply, even legitimately desire, it is in part because he is helping us release our grip on the handle of the cistern-dipper and waiting for us to turn our attention to Him, the fountain of living waters.