Leaky Cisterns

 May 27, 2021

One of yesterday’s projects was mucking out the pond opposite our driveway. To be sure, it’s not a proper farm pond; it isn’t fed by any springs. It’s just a cement-covered hole in the ground surrounded by rhododendrons and a rock garden needing more tending than we’ve given it. Oh...and it leaks. That’s why over the past two years it turned from a fish pond to a mini swamp. It’s cleaned out much to the frogs’ chagrin, but it will only hold water about halfway up. It got me to thinking about Jeremiah 2:13 — “My people have committed two sins; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

“Living waters” are the Bible’s way of describing running water, as in a stream. The stream behind our home is filled with life, its banks lined with trees, grasses, and flowers. Ducks fly in and out and we see the occasional Great Blue Heron. My pond on the other hand, is a real life illustration of this Scripture; it’s a leaky cistern that can’t hold water; any I put into it just drains out while the muck builds up. 

This life is filled with leaky cisterns from which people try to draw living water. It doesn’t work because cisterns don’t contain living water; their water is stagnant, filled with detritus and debris. How often have I drunk the putrid waters of this world when I could have slaked my thirst with the living water of Christ! And yet, it’s never too late. That mucky pond is cleaned out; all I need to do is re-line it and install feeder and overflow lines to keep it clear. It takes a lot of work to clear out the muck of our lives, but it can be done, and if we make sure there is both an intake and an outflow of the life of Christ, we will not stagnate, but become a source of life and beauty to all who come near.