Our Broken Cisterns

When I was in Israel a year ago, I had the privilege of visiting an old Crusader castle. It was set right

into a cliff, hanging out over the ocean. As I toured around I got the glimpse of a cistern. It wasn't what I had expected while reading the bible. It was like a well built above ground It was smashed on the side and falling apart as you would expect. Then it hit me, broken cisterns. This is what God was talking about in [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. "

Israel committed two sins.

First, they forsake God the SPRING of LIVING WATER. Let's talk about a spring for a second.

spring

1.     to rise, leap, move, or act suddenly and swiftly, as by a sudden dart or thrust forward or outward, or being suddenly released from a coiled or constrained position: to spring into the air; a tiger about to spring.
   
2.     to be released from a constrained position, as by resilient or elastic force or from the action of a spring: A trap springs. The door sprang open and in he walked.
   
3.     to issue forth suddenly, as water, blood, sparks, fire, etc. (often followed by forth, out, or up): Blood sprang from the wound.
   
4.     to come into being, rise, or arise within a short time (usually followed by up): Industries sprang up in the suburbs.
   
5.     to come into being by growth, as from a seed or germ, bulb, root, etc.; grow, as plants.
   
6.     to proceed or originate from a specific source or cause.
   
7.     to have as one's birth or lineage; be descended, as from a person, family, stock, etc.; come from: to spring from ancient aristocracy.

The root word "spring" basically means to come forth suddenly. The noun is defined as:

an issue of water from the earth, taking the form, on the surface, of a small stream or standing as a pool or small lake.

I'm not sure if you have ever seen a spring up close and personal but when I was about 9 years old I was "camping" (I use quotations because in reality we were homeless) in the national forest around Chiloquin, Oregon. At one point we camped at the headwaters of a river. It was a spring. Water literally bubbled up out of the ground with force. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I remember sticking my hand inside one of the springs to try and feel around. I didn't do it again because I was fairly certain I was going to get sucked in by some kind of swamp thing.

The water sprang up from the ground and formed a river. Here is something that not a lot of people know. The term "living water" is usually in reference to a river or a creek or some kind of moving water. Defined as:

Moving water, as in a stream or river, as opposed to water in a pond or pool.

The reason its called living water is in contrast to still water. Or dead water:

still water without any current.
Why? Because when water is stagnate it causes things to grow in it. Usually making the water undrinkable.  However, if the water is moving it becomes difficult for things to grow in, bacteria for example. Making fresh spring water or "living water" desirable over any other kind of water.

So, basically Israel forsakes God's moving, living, healthy, life sustaining water... for what? Man-made cisterns:

a reservoir, tank, or container for storing or holding water or other liquid.
They gave up an endless supply of fresh water to build their own cisterns to put water in. What? What the heck are you going to put in those cisterns? Are you going to fill it up with water from God's spring? No, because they forsook that thing... so where does the water come from? Even if you could find your own water supply then you have to fill it... and it becomes stagnate and dead. THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE! I mean really think about how ridicules this sounds (which is kinda God's point). But then he goes on to say that the cisterns are broken! They don't even hold water! They must have sucked at building cisterns. Or rather, if we took this for the metaphor that God is implying we suck at making our own gods.

 Let me take this to a more practical example of today. We don't really have to deal with the draw backs of cisterns these days (at least we pretend not to). Instead lets look at relationships. There are only two options for someone to make a choice like the one God's implying. First is being completely and utterly stupid. An excuse we'd like to use, no doubt. Or being utterly full of pride. We have to do it ourselves. We need to be self dependent. We don't need God. Like porn is better than a healthy marriage cause we don't have to commit to the other person. Like our being alone is better than a healthy friendship. 'Cause it's easier. Like every time we do something in our own strength or for our owns reasons other than God's because we either think He's taking too long, He ain't going to do what we want, or we've figured out something better.

But here's the kicker. The one planted right in our teeth. God says:

"What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me?"

 [Jeremiah 2:5]

 It isn't just that we're choosing something over God. It's that we think SO POORLY of His plans, His designs, Him, that we give up on Him. He isn't good enough! So we've got to do this thing ourselves. His plan isn't what I want, so I'm going to do it my way. The woman/man God has picked out for me AIN'T WORTH WAITING FOR. The friends in my life AIN'T WORTH DYING OVER. The Mission He has for me AIN'T WORTH THE CROSS.

Man, if we could just get it in our heads. He is Good enough. He works ALL things together for our Good [Romans 8:28]. Trust him that the living water is going to sustain us so much longer and better than whatever we can work out for ourselves. Maybe we'd stop running into marriages and relationships that just fall apart. Maybe we'd stop ruining friendships and relationships with our leaders an pastors and submit to the process that God is trying to use to clean our act up. If we could just trust that the man or women that God is making us to be is worth being! That is everything we've ever wanted. That God isn't just setting us aside to get glory from our misery but to get glory from our perfection made possible through Christ Jesus.

Find Shelter

You'll have to forgive me, this post may seem a bit repetitive in the sense that I'm piggy packing off of another one of my Pastor's sermons. Frankly talking about my Pastor's sermons is one of my favorite pass times. It really helps me to evaluate and grab a hold of what God is trying to teach me through my Pastor.

My whole life I've had to deal with Death. It has been very evident sense I was very little. In fact, at the age of 5 I came to the terms that eventually I would die, and believing that nothing happens after died (because all the Christians I had known up this this point felt really phony to me... a 5 year old) I figured I would just cease to exist. My ultimate resolution to this was that if I died I wouldn't even be around to miss not living so it couldn't be all that bad. But it was terrifying.

Under that world view I lived my entire childhood. Frankly nothing in this world really warranted my attention. It didn't really deserve my time. After all, eventually I would die so whats the point? You might say I was a "tad" cynical. I began to look for somewhere to hide from what I believe to be a harsh reality. Don't get me wrong here... I was suicidal or even depressed really by this reality. Not at first. I just didn't want to think about it. I wanted to avoid the whole idea of death; of life. So I hid. First I hid in toys, games, make believe. I never wanted to do anything real. I wanted to live in fantasy. Eventually that really didn't work out so I moved on to books. I used to read eight hundred page books a week. Sometimes people wonder how I know random stupid facts, probably because I picked it up in a book somewhere and stashed it away for a rainy day.

Eventually my escapism lead me to video games I talked about that a week or so ago in my blog Why I Have Given Up Video Games... 

Sometimes I hid in lust. Sometimes I hid in anger. Sometimes I hid in desperation. I was always looking for somewhere to shelter myself from that world I really didn't enjoy. It was my way of coping with what I didn't want to accept.

Tonight, my Pastor talked about finding shelter in God. It's a pretty simple concept. One that most of us Christians have heard before and have even practiced. However, it brought me to a sudden reality: Even with my avoiding of video games I've found myself desperately trying to hide myself in them again and again. If not them, television. Something to get my mind off of the things I really don't want to think about.

It's not that I don't seek God. I do my devotions almost every day.  I pray every day. I worship God every day. However, usually after running to Him with my problems. I usually end up feeling hopeless anyway... I talked about that in my previous blog: Fear: An evaluated look, inspired by my Pastor

I don't really trust where my help comes from (Psalm 121:1). I don't, when I'm feeling defeated or beaten up find refuge in Christ (Psalm 57:1). I bring my problems and my woes but I don't hide in Him. I don't look for shelter. I for some reason think its still my job to take the brunt of it. Like Jesus didn't die on the cross. LIKE JESUS DIDN'T DIE ON THE CROSS. Like the whole point of it all is that I don't have to bare that. At least not alone. As if God didn't provide a place for me. Like he isn't waiting in our secret place to look after me. To converse. To absolve. To forgive.

Sometimes I wonder at how stupid I can be. So easily confused or deceived. We humans are SO FUNNY. We can repeat something, completely understand it. Put it to practice and then forget the entire purpose of it. We take what God intended for relationship and we turn it right into a mechanical religion. It becomes ceremony.

"Of course I brought it to God!" And then I picked it up and walked out with it. LOL!

Tonight I really think I got the meaning that David was getting at in Psalm 121. Taking refuge in God. Crawling underneath the Word of God and letting God defend me. Veiling myself in His goodness. Like, "I don't care about what's going on. God's handling the situation bro. I'm just going to sit here and hide. In the corner, clad in Kevlar behind the blast shield. I think he can handle it."

I'm offended at my Pastor.

I starting interning with my Youth Pastor Seth Trenda back in 2010. Just out of high school, barley knew
Christ. I was a too-smart-for-my-own-good-hungry-like-a-beast-christian. From day one I started to get involved with out media department. I did everything with excitement and with a desire to do it for God. I remember spending sleepless nights with some of my favorite people on the planet. Jordan Shaw and Sean Gleason. It was SO easy for me to follow. So easy for me to do what I was told and work hard to complete a task knowing that I did not have to come up with a strategy or a method to accomplish a ask but I trusted my Pastor knowing he had a plan to help bring youth to Christ. It was easy.

As time went on it wasn't long before I starting raising up as a leader among my peers. Suddenly things got HARD. Suddenly there were expectations of me. Suddenly I couldn't just goof off and let my Pastor handle everything.

Projects would be put in my hands to get done and I was expected to do them. Without help. Without a step by step instruction manual to get it done. I had to work harder than I had initially thought this whole church thing was. When things went wrong, it was my fault. I was in charge of the project. If people didn't get called or someone didn't show up. It was my problem. Worse than that, there was 0 appreciation for what I did. If something went awesome, no one noticed. If I helped put a service together and it went off without a hitch... no one said a word to me.

As time passed it only got worse. More and more expectations were placed on me. I couldn't date. I couldn't hang out with girls by myself. I couldn't drink. I couldn't say what I wanted to say on facebook. I couldn't argue. I couldn't get angry. I was restricted. Had to show up to every service. Had to say the right things. Had to read my bible. I had to be an example.

However what was worse than anything was getting to know my Pastor. He wasn't perfect. He wasn't the all-knowing-holy-man-with-huge-biceps that I put on the pedestal in my head. He got angry. He had unfair expectations of some people. He made mistakes. He blamed me for things I didn't do. Didn't appreciate me. He had favorites. He didn't have the answer for my problems. I didn't like his advise. I didn't like his ideas. I hated his sense of humor. For a while... I hated him.

I remember distinctly a period in my life where I just wanted to quit church. I didn't like my youth pastor. He turned out to be just like everyone else. A person. There wasn't anything special about him. There wasn't anything special about what I was doing. No one cared about what I did. It would be way too easy to just go out and do what I wanted. Date the girls I was interested in. Say the things I wanted to say. Be the person I wanted to be.

Then one dark September day our youth lost a really important young man. Gabriel Washuburn. I didn't really know the guy. I knew of him. He at one time was a prodigy in our youth department. I didn't know him. But my Pastor did. I remember driving to the hospital with Jordan Shaw... I remember all the tears... I remember seeing my entire church morn. Most of all I remember what Jordan told me he witnessed in the bedroom of my youth Pastors home. On his knees. Tears in his eyes. Heart BROKEN. My Pastor. Praying. Worshiping. Crying out to Christ.

Then it clicked. He loves us. Every face. Every young person who steps in our church. He loves them. He'd die for them. He has given up his whole life for them. Every time we screw up. It hurts him. Every time we do the wrong thing he hates it! Every time he put expectations on me it was because HE SAW something in me I DIDN'T. All these expectations on me were about leadership. Expectations he put on himself. You see I finally realized something one day. I was offended at my Youth Pastor. For being human. He demanded I shoot for something I would never reach for on my own and I resented him for it. He wanted me to succeed and fought against every thought and every attitude in my life that stood in the way of that success.

More than that I discovered something about leadership later on that year when I started working with a young man named Wright Miller. You see I need Wright. He does something special on our church. The same thing that I once did and still do for my Pastor. Wright Miller has placed himself next to me under the weight of ministry and put his back into lifting just a little bit off my shoulders. Something my Pastor has always needed. Something I have made my mission here at Faith Center Church. I aim to lift the pressure off.

Now days I love my Pastor's sense of humor. I love his attitude. I think what hes doing in Clark county is phenomenal. I ain't offended at him anymore. I thank God every day for putting a man like him in my life.