Journal 2

The term “broken cisterns” came to mind last week in class when we were discussing the Saturday Night Live skit in conjunction with society’s (and our!) desire to fill ourselves with self-affirmation and reach toward self-actualization. In Jeremiah 2:13, God voices this complaint: “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.” The greatest consequence of the Fall is the enmity and the distance between God and mankind. Since then, the propensity of our fallen and sinful nature is to serve self, and to rule our lives (and the lives of others if possible) for our own pleasure and glory. Thus, we create cisterns to fill up with whatever the world has to offer that makes us feel good about ourselves in some way, shape, or form.

Unfortunately, all our efforts are in vain. As God graciously reveals to us in this same accusation against man, these cisterns are broken and can hold no water. Although we repeatedly force feed ourselves with what our sinful hearts desire, our cisterns are never full. We never have enough. We are never satisfied. All the self-affirmation and the striving toward self-actualization never fills us up. Our own cisterns can hold no water. As Cushman revealed in his article, there is no cure for the empty self.

Fortunately, God gives us the answer to our problems in this same passage: Himself. The LORD is the fountain of living waters. This is a fountain that is ever-flowing. Therefore we do not need any sort of storage tank- there is always water to drink when we are thirsty. Furthermore, these are living, or life-giving waters, a “spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). God calls us to come and drink freely.

So, who are we? We are people who by nature seek to fill ourselves up with what the world has to offer us- be it pleasure, happiness, fame, or any other of a host of things that do not ultimately satisfy. We are people who were created to be filled with “soul-staggering grandeur” as John Piper puts it. God is the only one who can completely satisfy our needs, and who, by His grace through His Spirit, is at work in us who believe in Him to recreate us and bring us into a state of glory where we will be filled with all the fullness of God.