The Water that Satisfies (Jeremiah 2:13)

Jeremiah 2:13

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.

            It is amazing how self-defeating is our sinful search for satisfaction apart from God.  We try all sorts of things to fill our empty souls.  Some try success, others pleasures, still others fame or fortune or strange substances.  When will we learn that such things, while they offer pleasure for a moment, will not satisfy?

            What a glorious thing God has said to us in Jeremiah 2:13.  He describes how his people have turned their backs on him to seek their satisfaction in other things.  In context, he is telling Judah how faithless they have been and how they have, by their continual sinfulness and idolatry, turned away from God toward destruction. 

            But in another sense, this passage has a great deal of hope for us if we will see it.  Not only is God saying that some have turned from him toward what will not satisfy, but God is also saying that, if we will serve him, we will find satisfaction in him. 

            The imagery that God uses is of a clean pool of sweet water in comparison to muddy, brackish, stinky water in a broken cistern.  We have far too often turned to the mud puddle for a drink.  This is sad.  But there is good news.  There is a fountain of living water.  There is a bubbling pool of the sweetest, coldest, clearest water for us to drink.  The message is not that we must choose between muddy water and no water.  No, the choice is between muddy and poisonous water and the wonderful, joyous, soul-satisfying water of God.

            Don’t miss the point.  There is joy to be had.  Turn from this world.  Turn from your sin.  Turn from the things that this crazy life tempts you with.  Turn to Christ.  Find that in the Lord are all the joys and pleasures that your soul has ever truly desired.  God is a fountain of life, a river of joy.  When we truly behold him in his majesty and glory, when we are truly part of bringing him glory, we will find him to be the great Satisfier of our souls.  We will find him to be the water for which we have thirsted all our lives.