Thirstin' for the Word Thursday

If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." (John 7:37b)

Feeling a bit parched? Searching to quench that thirst with an iced tea or Diet Coke? Dive into the Word for real refreshment!

I try to be diligent in my Bible reading and am often rewarded by God's speaking to my heart through particular scriptures. I pause and sometimes even write them down. The reflection usually ends there, however. This year, I would like to pursue the verses that God lays on my heart by pondering how He wants me to apply these verses in my life.

Here is what spoke to me this week:

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. Jeremiah 2:13

Have you every been thirsty? I mean, really thirsty? So thirsty that your mouth feels so dry that your tongue feels like cotton? What do you do? Fill up a glass with ice-cold water and drain it dry? If you're like me, instead, you reach in to the fridge and pull out a Diet Coke. That first sip tastes great, but the rest of the drink just doesn't satisfy, and an hour later, you're still thirsty.

The Israelites were in a similar situation in today's scripture. Jeremiah has accused them of two sins: one, turning their backs on God, and two, trying to substitute an inferior method of filling the void. When I read this verse, I saw that a cistern must be dug and immediately thought of a well. However, how could a well be broken? Upon investigation I found that a cistern was a pit that was dug to collect rainwater and that it is from "the Hebrew word bour, a receptacle for water that has been brought to it. This is distinguished from be'er, which denotes a (usually natural) water reservoir such as a well (be'er literally equals "well").

Okay, so the Israelites were using pits to collect rainwater, water that would remain stagnant in those pits for days. This is not the most pleasant or sanitary water system. Now, consider that in the metaphor that Jeremiah draws, the cisterns were cracked. All of their collected rainwater was leaking out! Imagine, they were thirsting for their brackish water when they could have been enjoying fresh streams of God's living water!

Don't we do this? Don't we backslide and say that we're too busy to read our Bible or to pray? When our spirits cry out to us that they are thirsty for a relationship with God, we instead try to satisfy that thirst with inferior substitutes, like wordly accomplishments, materialism, and others' approval? The more we consume of these shoddy replacements, the thirstier we become, but we don't always realize that our so-called solutions don't work, that we are simply dehydrating our spirits.

God is waiting on us to cup our hands and quench our thirst with the Living Water.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. John 7:38

So, what verses have spoken to you this week? Post those verses on your own blog, along with how you see that God wants you to apply them in your life. Then, provide your link below so that we can drink from one another's wells of scripture.