Jeremiah 2:13
My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Hauled out the cool mist humidifier yesterday.
Seems a little early in the winter for me to be feeling so dry, but I am. Then again, I remember that for the past several years, I've been in Thailand right about this time of year, at least for November, where there's, shall we say, a tad more humidity. Not to mention the abundance of waterfalls where you can go for the day - "bia teo" - and just play with reckless abandon in white cascades of delight.
By yesterday then, my Thailand-deprived skin and hair were really getting into that whole Covid-complaining act we're all prone to these days. All the sanitizer doesn't help, and my one knuckle was even bleeding a little. Sorry for the TMI, but another good reason to drastically reduce any ventures outside my own home.
Hopefully some serious shea butter therapy, a coconut oil home hair treatment, and the little whirring machine beside my desk will help. Physically at least.
The threat of being too dry this winter isn't just in the skin and hair care realm however. There's some very intentional, essentially important nourishing we'll need to be on top of when it comes to our souls as well. Isolation does more than just dry up our social life. It can threaten to thwart our spiritual vibrancy in ways even more detrimental to our overall heath.
In His message through the prophet Jeremiah, God identifies two sins of His people. The first is a forsaking of the kind of worship and connection and obedience that results in the receiving of the abundance and life He longs to pour into us. A spring of living water, He calls Himself, bringing to mind, by the way, the words of Jesus to the woman he met at the well that day (John 4:1-13) and the wild freshness of the waterfall mentioned above.
The second sin is a corollary to the first. A replacement. Instead of drinking from the spring of clean, vibrant, living water, the people have turned to the stagnant, stinking water that collects in the brokenness of human effort to find satisfaction anywhere else but God.
Yuck!
It's a vivid picture and on purpose. God is longing to bring them back to vibrancy and life.
Of course, when we read these words from the prophet, we can see it clearly. Who would make such a choice? Just think of where you'd rather wash your clothes, go swimming, rather drink from? Broken cisterns? No thank you.
Except I have to admit that in isolation the pull is there. With no one watching, safe in my own home, who am I and how do I nourish myself? Junk food? Too much news? Too much TV? Or on the opposite end of the scale. Too much work? Too much overcompensating for feeling sidelined? Too many words? Too much judgement for anyone doing too much of what I don't approve of? These can be broken cisterns as well.
And it all leads to dry, cracked and bleeding souls, desperate for something so obviously right there in front of us....God's offer of life and life abundant.
So my dear fellow pandemic peeps, let's not dry out this winter! Let's drink Him in, in all the ways we can. Every week, with the online service, we can 'gather' to worship 'together' around our TVs or computers, as if dancing together around a fire hydrant. Every day we can apply the pure therapy of Scripture, massaging it into the needy places of our minds and hearts. All the time we can sit in the mist of the prayerful presence of God, breathing life and vibrancy into the very parenchyma of our spirits.
What I love about this text is all the longing in God's voice. When I read it, I don't hear a loud boom of accusation. Rather, when it gets to the part 'they have forsaken Me', I can almost hear His voice breaking. As if He's watching us dry out before His very eyes, and yet He's right there with exactly everything we need.
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