Jeremiah 2:13

I was reading through Jeremiah 2 the other day and was really convicted on this verse: 

"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."

You can't really have one without the other, can you? If we forsake the Lord, we will replace him with something else. It's in our humanity; we will always serve something, be it God or an idol, but something in our lives will be our focus of worship.

So I began meditating on this and asking the Lord to reveal areas in my life where I was leaving him for another god. What are my broken cisterns, Lord? I didn't get a concrete answer that morning, but God did show me just how much I love my 'cisterns' and just how faulty they are. 

In result, a poem. :) I hope you enjoy. And I hope the Lord will gently point out areas where you are replacing him as well, because we all are, and he is much too gracious and merciful to let us settle for less than his everlasting provision. :)

Jeremiah 2:13

I carry with me a cistern, broken, water dripping down the sides but I don't seem to mind. The cistern is mine, you see. I built it slowly from the most lovely things. What a beautiful creation indeed! Ah, the creativity of me.

And when another leak sprouts, I'll patch it up with cardboard and paper and old magazines.

Nevermind the drops that plummet yet to the street. Nevermind my soaking clothes, the sodden shoes on my feet.

The cistern is mine.

The cistern is fine.

When the paper melts, I'll wrap it in the finest silk and cashmere and chiffon, not once believing that they will absorb little, that they will not hold, that soon I'll be wading through a flood in the road.

The water.

Is cold.

Carry on, I'll believe, preaching loudly to myself. Ignore the rivers, the oceans, the deep-drenched mess that once was my dress, as I cling close to the cistern, press it tight against my chest. Looking up to the skies, shielding soft subtle cries. It's only the rain, the rain! I'll say, And one day soon it will all go away!

While my cistern, at last, shatters through. And gives way.

The pieces in my hands.

How fast it fell apart.

And the flood in the city destroys all.

Leaves it.

Dark.

My poems aren't normally so morbid! :)

Agape,
CC