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 NIV).
It is amazing if you really look at the way people throw away the priceless things of life to settle for cheap things. Nowhere else is this more seen than in man’s relationship to God. God is like a spring of living water.
It flows naturally and continuously. It is fresh and refreshing too. Its supply is endless. The only thing that we need to do to enjoy this fountain is to drink deeply of it.
Instead of doing that we totally forsake God. We do not value the grace of God that is freely given to us. Now that is the first step. But however hard you try you cannot stop there. Because according to nature’s law a vacuum cannot exist. Something has to fill it as soon as a vacuum is created.
When God, who is the source of our life, is forsaken a vacuum is created in our hearts. And then we cannot but fill it. So the first sin naturally leads to the second sin described here.
To compensate for our loss of relationship with God, we try to dig our own cisterns and try to store water. This is nothing other than pride. We try to make ourselves self-sufficient.
But we can never be self-sufficient without God. All our efforts will be only like broken cisterns that cannot hold water. In other words, your efforts to fill the vacuum created by your rejection of God will be continuous. Yet it will be futile.
You will fill only to find it drain away. In effect, you will be caught in a continuous cycle of filling and refilling. But alas it does not remain nor does it satisfy.
The only solution is to forsake your broken cisterns, your various methods of finding satisfaction, and return to the spring of living water, God Himself. There the waters of life flow freely, continuously and it satisfies at all times.
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