DAILY WORD

The image of living water is often used to describe spiritual refreshment and satisfaction. As the fountain of living water, God is the source of this refreshment and satisfaction. However, as the prophet Jeremiah describes, God’s people time and again have forsaken the fountain of living water, and, in its place have dug cisterns for themselves, cisterns in which the water grows stagnant and stale. Moreover, these cisterns have become cracked and can no longer hold water!

The cisterns represent all those places in our lives where we go looking for refreshment and satisfaction. Although, at first, the water in these cisterns momentarily satisfies, it eventually grows stagnant and stale. The cracked cisterns of our lives cannot hold water for very long! Just as a deer longs for the flowing streams, so our souls long for the presence of God (Psalm 42:1). We longingly search for that which can truly satisfy the thirstiness of our souls, and yet, as the psalmist declares, “All my fountains are in You, O Lord” (Psalm 87:7).

Jesus came to live among us in the barrenness and dryness of our self-made cisterns. He came as the living water to bring satisfaction to our souls. Jesus said, “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). As we drink deeply of the living water of God’s presence, this water begins to overflow from our lives into the lives of others. We become vessels of God’s presence, vessels of life-giving water that truly satisfies the soul.

During this Lenten season, let us allow God to show us the dry and barren places in our lives. Where have been dug cisterns for ourselves – cisterns that can hold no water? Where do we need the refreshment and satisfaction of God’s living water?

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